


tiny cracks of light

by lady_mab



Series: inside every open eye [2]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Archivist Sasha James, Desolation!Tim, F/F, F/M, Flashbacks, Sort Of, canon-typical fear
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-01
Updated: 2020-08-09
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:48:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 23
Words: 37,951
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24987067
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lady_mab/pseuds/lady_mab
Summary: Sasha remains rooted to the floor, steadying herself as the thing inside of her rages.'There is nothing for you back there,' it says."I know." She places a hand to her heart and closes her eyes. "I am not looking for anything for myself. Just a man who is missing." She pauses, then her fingers curl around the fabric of her dress. Quietly, hesitantly, she adds, "A friend who needs my help," and hopes that it is true.(When Jon goes missing when attempting a ritual of the Beholding, Sasha is asked to return to the Archives to help find and save him.)
Relationships: Georgie Barker/Melanie King, Sasha James/Tim Stoker
Series: inside every open eye [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1773814
Comments: 120
Kudos: 56





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I will show restraint  
> Just like we said we should  
> You think I'll apologize for things I left behind  
> But you got it wrong  
> And I'm as sane as I ever was
> 
> You talk far too much  
> For someone so unkind  
> I will wipe the salt off of my skin  
> And I'll admit that I got it wrong  
> And there is grey between the lines  
> \- CHVRCHES' ["Leave a Trace"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Eo84jDIMKI)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Prelude-**  
>  Jon lingers in the doorway to the library for as long as he is willing — watching the golden haze, waiting for someone that isn’t there. It’s a place that holds memories, the happier ones that he lets himself keep. It holds whispers of laughter, of comforting hands, of understanding.
> 
> “It is time, Archivist,” the Eye tells him.
> 
> He gives it one final look before he closes the door and locks it. This will be the only way to keep it safe.  
> Georgie will forgive him, perhaps, eventually. She always does.
> 
> “I am ready,” Jon says and the dream shifts, the heavy oak door to the library melting away. His center of gravity pivots until he is on his back, water surrounding him.
> 
> “Close your eyes, Archivist,” the Eye tells him, and he does. “Now, we will begin.”

The woman standing in her doorway reeks of the ink-stained parchment and scratching quills of academia, despite her gilded breastplate and embroidered brocade headscarf. She stares at Sasha with a gaze heavy from the familiar weight of Watching, and speaks without preamble. 

“The Archivist is missing.” 

Sasha attempts to slam the door shut in the woman’s face, but a gold gauntlet catches onto the wood and forces it back open. “That is not my concern,” she spits, the taste of anise heavy on her tongue as the thing inside her rears its ugly head at the mere reminder of the Institute. 

The woman is stronger, and gets the advantage easily. “It is all of our concerns,” she says, her voice soft and lyrical. Almost the honey-sweet tone of the Eye’s compulsion, but lacking finesse. Lacking any real power. 

She takes a step back and hates that she has to be on the defensive in her own home. “I was forcibly removed from the Institute, and told under no uncertain terms that I was not allowed back. I am of no use to your Archivist.” It’s easy to let the bitterness overtake her tone, to let it stir angrily in her chest. 

_Let me,_ the thing inside of her begs, and it's a struggle not to simply give in. _Let me teach her a lesson._

"The Watcher seemed perfectly content with hiring an unqualified individual as the next Head Archivist. I am certain he can do it again." Sasha stomps to her door and holds it open. 

The woman watches her move, but remains rooted. 

So Sasha clears her throat and waves a hand dramatically at the door. "Leave." 

"I am not here on behalf of Elias," the woman finally says, and the polished veneer of her calm starts to crack. "I am not here on behalf of the Institute." 

This gets Sasha to pause, damn it all, and the voice inside of her hisses in frustration. "Then why are you here? You work for the Archives, don't you?" 

"I observe those who work under Elias, the Archivist and his team, if that's what you mean." 

It's not, really. Sasha finds it odd that this woman keeps referring to the Watcher by his name instead of his title, but perhaps it is only something that Gertrude impressed upon her assistants. She never worked long enough under Jonathan to find out how that team would have addressed the Watcher. "Then who told you to come get me? Because, like I said, I can't help—" 

"Timothy Stoker gave me your name." 

Sasha stops cold, and something in her chest lurches one way, while the thing inside of her lurches the other. "Tim?" she repeats, breathless. "He's still with the Institute?" 

_That traitor,_ the thing howls. 

She wants to tell it that it's wrong, but that would be a lie. 

"Not… really," the woman replies slowly, and a little more of that polish rubs off. "But he returned when I sought him out." 

Finally, Sasha sighs and slams the door shut. "I don't understand what you want from me. I was removed from my position as an Archival assistant years ago. If you know anything about my history with the Archives, then you would know that I would not _care_ that their Archivist is missing." 

"I came because a man I work for, a man I understand _saved_ you, has gone missing. I was hoping that—" 

"What, I would return the favor? One life saved for another?" She scoffs and moves to the chair by the fireplace, dropping into it with little ceremony. "It was only fair, as he stole my life's work from me in the first place." 

"Do you think so little of him?" 

_Yes,_ the thing says, and she almost repeats it out loud. 

But then she considers it, biting her thumbnail, as the thing inside of her struggles against her hesitation. The anger at being passed over for Head Archivist had been very real, still is — a blade trapped between her ribs and speaking to her in a voice that is not hers, but could be. Had been. 

But it was the Watcher's choice, in the end. Not Gertrude's. Not Jonathan's, even if he had accepted the position he had not worked years to train for. 

And, in the end, it had been Jon who had pulled her back and locked away the thing she had called forth. It is still inside of her, a part of her, but it no longer wears her face. Can't speak for her, as much as it wants to. 

"No," she finally says. "Maybe. I pity him, certainly." 

The woman's expression softens at this, and she moves to kneel in front of Sasha. "Jonathan Sims has gone missing," she says, quietly, urgently. "Elias doesn't seem concerned. There was no sign of a struggle and we—" She breaks off and breathes in deep. "We would have noticed, if something tried to take him again." 

Sasha doesn't miss the _again_ , but doesn't push it. "And what does Tim seem to think I could _possibly_ help with?" 

“You understand the Eye, perhaps better than any of us. The position of Head Archivist would have been yours, if not for Jonathan.” 

“A fact I am very well aware of, but that does not explain how I can help.”

The tension returns to the woman's expression, and she gazes up at Sasha. Holds her eyes steady, and in the light filtering in through the window, Sasha can see the mark of the Eye. Similar to the one that she knows is in her own eyes, but different somehow. 

Sasha's hand snaps out before she can even think the action over, and she grabs the woman's chin to tilt her towards the light better. A pulse lances through the woman's frame, but it's not fear. 

Restraint. Resisting the urge to lash out. 

"What is your name?" Sasha demands, and the taste of anise on her tongue is almost enough to drown out the flood of iron in her mouth as the spell takes effect. 

"My name is Basira." 

"And do the others know why you were sent to the Archives?" 

"They are aware. I was brought on to prevent further incidents from happening at Elias' request." 

Sasha growls, and she's uncertain just how much of it is her own, how much of the anger belongs to the thing inside of her. "And does the Watcher know that he has one of the Blind in his Archives?" 

Now, there's that first shock of fear, and the thing inside of Sasha thrills at the taste of it. Basira tries to jerk back, but Sasha doesn't let her, using a strength that isn't her own to keep the woman kneeling there. 

But Basira resists the compulsion, gritting her teeth despite the hand around her chin. "If you think that I feel guilt over that, then you're mistaken." 

"I asked you a question. Does the Watcher know?" 

"I imagine you already know the answer to that yourself, Stranger." 

Sasha pushes her away, because she _could_ know, if she wanted to. The connection to the Eye hasn't been completely severed, if only she was brave enough to reach out and pluck it. 

Basira catches herself on one gauntleted hand, the metal ringing out as it connects with the wood. "I make no secret of it," she says, slowly rising to her feet and adjusting the gauntlet. “Jonathan was… _is_ aware."

Frustrated, tired, and unable to get her thoughts to silence long enough to breathe, Sasha brushes past Basira and crosses the small room. "That is why you were sent here to fetch me for your quest? In case I became an _incident_?" 

Basira carries no visible weapon, but if she truly has a connection to the Blind, then it wouldn't be hard to overpower Sasha. 

"Only in a capacity to subdue," Basira concedes. 

"Why didn’t Tim come?" she asks, and she hates the tone of weakness in her words. 

Basira doesn't answer, focusing instead on adjusting the way the folds of her golden robes fall. "Will you come with me back to the Archives? We need your connection to the Eye in order to find our Archivist." 

"Why does the Watcher not get a new one?" 

"Elias—" Basira starts, a venom in her voice that twists her expression into an anger that makes Sasha take a step back. When she finally continues, it is with a forced calm. "Elias seems confident that Jon will return." 

Sasha considers this. It is a statement like that makes the Archivist so important to the Archives. They take the certainties of the Watcher and verify what exactly it means. 

Will Jon return of his own volition, thus rendering her assistance moot and possibly a dangerous contribution to all of their safeties — or will he return because they find him?

"I cannot speak with the same confidence that I will be the best option for your quest," Sasha says softly. 

"Your connection to the Eye is the strongest, despite everything," Basira replies, confirming Sasha's suspicions. "And those of us left have a… a unique skill set that qualifies us for dealing with the Stranger, should it take over." 

A wave of nausea at the implication hits her like a physical blow, but she swallows it down. "Thank you." 

Once more, the lines of tension in Basira's stance fade, and she looks down with a sigh. "Besides, I think Tim will be more likely to behave if you're there." 

For the first time in what feels like too long, Sasha laughs. She laughs, and it keeps spilling out of her, until her stomach hurts and there are tears in her eyes — because she misses him, she misses that time she had in the Archives. The years of her life devoted to one Archivist after another until she tried to take it for herself. "You do not know Tim if you think that I will be the one to control him." 

Basira gives a small huff, but the sound of it is amused more than annoyed. "A lot has happened since you left the Archives. I think you would be surprised." 

Sasha doubts that — could confirm that, if she really wanted to, but there is still the lingering trace of fear that even the last bit of her connection to the Eye will not be enough. That it will be truly beyond her grasp. "You keep speaking of Tim. What about Martin? I would have thought that he would be moving the heavens to find Jon—" 

_There_ , the thing inside of her says as something flickers across Basira's expression. _Oh, that is delicious fear._

"What?" Sasha asks, taking a step closer. The thing inside of her reaches out with clawing hands, trying to pull in the fear radiating from Basira, and Sasha's senses are overwhelmed with the taste of it. "What happened to Martin?" 

"He's still at the Archives," Basira hurries to say. "He knows that Jon is missing." 

_But he doesn't care_ , is left unspoken — or perhaps it is whispered gleefully by that voice in her head. 

Basira breathes in, exhales, straightens her posture. "He is not himself," she says, which seems like an understatement, but Sasha has no point of reference. 

She's been gone from their lives for three years. People change. Even Martin. "I will go," Sasha says, hands clenching into fists. "I will help you find the Archivist." 

The relief isn't visible, but Sasha can see the weight lift from Basira's shoulders as the other woman nods her head. "Good. Pack what you need. We will leave as soon as you are ready. I will prepare your horse." With that, she turns on her heel and leaves the house. 

Sasha remains rooted to the floor, steadying herself as the thing inside of her rages. 

_There is nothing for you back there,_ it says. 

"I know." She places a hand to her heart and closes her eyes. "I am not looking for anything for myself. Just a man who is missing." She pauses, then her fingers curl around the fabric of her dress. Quietly, hesitantly, she adds, "A friend who needs my help," and hopes that it is true.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Prelude-**  
>  The halls of the Archives echo when there is no one around. 
> 
> They are large, airy, bright — the sun filtering in from glass panels in the ceiling, the windows thrown open to the elements. 
> 
> Sasha wanders up and down the halls as silently as she can manage, because any sound she makes is folded over several times and handed back to her with cruel hands. Her solitary footsteps, the frustrated grumbles, the hitch of her breath as she realizes that she has been left alone. Again. 
> 
> The study rooms are easier to manage. They are closed spaces, stuffed full of books and parchments, words of hundreds of people who have all passed through these halls. If she closes her eyes, she can imagine that they are here with her, whispering their stories beneath the tips of her fingers. 
> 
> The intruder into her space is loud, made louder still by the way his brassy tenor stretches to seemingly limitless halls. He calls out like he's lost in an abandoned castle, wondering if anyone is there. 
> 
> "This is a place of study," Sasha tells the man, annoyed that she has to emerge from her sanctuary to scare him off. That, despite hating being alone, she hates the fact that he would break that solitude. 
> 
> He stops and looks around for a moment, then cranes his neck back to gaze up at her on the walkway above. There is a sword at his side, and the riding clothes he wears are covered in dust. "Oh, I've found the Ghost of the Archives!" he laughs, and his eyes are as bright as his voice. "Apologies for disturbing you." 
> 
> Sasha wants to frown, tries to keep the annoyance in place, but his growing smile indicates that she fails miserably. "You've come a long way to look for a place that doesn't have any gold to steal." 
> 
> "I take it that making a joke about you stealing my breath isn't going to work on you, is it?" He sighs and shrugs when she shakes her head. "I've come from the Research branch. Are you the Head Archivist?" 
> 
> She doesn't know if she's insulted or flattered that he thinks that. "I'm one of her assistants. The Archivist is gone on a request from the Watcher. I'll be more than happy to help, Rogue from Research." 
> 
> This makes him laugh, clearly delighted, and Sasha decides she doesn't quite mind the sound echoing through her Archives. "My name is Tim." 
> 
> "Sasha. Now wait there, and I'll come help you." 
> 
> "I'll wait as long as necessary!" he calls as she steps back from the railing with a laugh.

All things considered, Sasha never did manage to put a lot of distance between herself and the Archives after she was kicked out. She tried, in the first few months. Managed to make it a year with as much of the country as she could put between them. 

But it ached like a rotten tooth, the tension only easing as she reclaimed the lost space between them. Until she found the perfect distance — a string pulled just shy of taut still connecting them. 

She and Basira start out in the early evening, as the sun just starts to set. Neither of them talk, focused instead on their horses and keeping a manageable pace on the ride. The lax string takes to winding itself around her lungs and her heart the closer they get, until she can barely breathe. 

It's a few hours out from dawn when they arrive, and Sasha's heart lurches as the Archives appear before her. 

It is like coming home, she thinks, tears in her eyes at the candle-lit warmth flooding from those windows, despite the time. 

It is a cruel reminder of what was taken from her. 

There is a figure in one of the windows, watching their approach. It is tall, broad shouldered, face in darkness so that Sasha can't make out the details from where she sits frozen on the back of her horse. 

"I told her not to wait up," Basira grumbles, a distinct lack of emotion in her words. 

Sasha dismounts, back stiff and legs like jelly after the long ride. She leans against her horse for support, tucking her face against the mare's mane as she tries to remember how to breathe again. 

Basira seems none the worse for wear, her golden breastplate still immaculate despite the ride, her embroidered robes catching the light from the Archives and making it difficult to look away. "I'll stable your horse, if you wish to go inside." 

For a long time, Sasha has no words. She opens her mouth, tries to speak, then shuts it again. Finally, eventually, she shakes her head. 

Basira's dark brows knit together and she purses her lips. "Is it preventing you from stepping inside the grounds?" she asks, and Sasha looks down. 

There hadn't always been such a clear divide between the surrounding countryside and the Archives, and she finds it hard to believe that any of the remaining assistants had taken up gardening in the years of her absence. But she can see it now, though it shifts and shivers when she blinks and rubs her eyes. 

"I don't know," she admits. The piece of her still connected to the Eye, the one that craves knowledge and understanding, wants to study this golden haze that surrounds her Archives. The source of it, the reason for it, why _now_ she can see it. "I don't think so." 

"Then what is it?" 

Sasha thinks about this for a long moment before she realizes the answer. "I'm terrified."

Basira's expression shifts, barely perceptible, into something akin to curiosity. The same sort of burning curiosity that Sasha knows so well. 

But before she can get a chance to say anything, the doors to the Archives slam open and a new figure stands there, silhouetted by candlelight that dances in the sudden wind.

"Sasha!" a voice calls, bright and brassy, and the string around her heart gives another painful tug. 

"Oh, _Tim_ ," she says softly as she watches him practically run across the path towards her. Her hands lift, uncertain of what she wants to do, and then he collides with her — scooping her up with a familiar ease and spinning her in a reckless circle. 

She acts on instinct, her arms wrapping around him and clinging to him like a lifeline. She buries her fingers in his hair, clutches the rough fabric of his shirt, and breathes him in. 

He smells like brimstone instead of worn parchment. He feels too warm, not the comforting presence she remembers. He looks different, as he sets her down and holds her out at arm's length to study her. Somehow, he looks different, though she can't figure out what it is. 

"Still covered in ink stains, I see," he teases. 

It's his smile, she realizes, as she reaches up to place a palm to his cheek. It's thinner, colder — despite the heat that courses beneath his skin. 

She could know, if she pushed. 

She doesn't, and pulls him in for another hug. "It's good to see you again." 

The muscles in his back loosen beneath her hands, and he returns the embrace without saying anything. 

"You're back quicker than I expected," another woman says, her voice light but dangerous.

"I told you I wouldn't need your help," Basira replies. "I think you'll find that she's a reasonable woman, and understood the situation when I explained it to her." 

Sasha recognizes the posture of the new woman as the one from the window. She stands with the grace of a trained fighter, muscles visible beneath the form-fitted clothing. Her eyes are ghostly pale, and catch the light of the lamp she carries with a predatory glow. "I think you'll find," the woman says to Basira even though she doesn't look away from Sasha, "that monsters can be reasonable, too." 

"You always know how to make a first impression, Daisy," Tim scoffs, finally releasing Sasha and stepping aside. "Sasha, meet Daisy. Try not to let her demeanor fool you: There is no soft puppy inside looking for snuggles." 

Daisy's lip curls, and there is a flash of teeth — inhumanly long, wickedly sharp — but then it's gone and her frown settles back on Sasha. 

Neither of them reach out a hand for a shake in greeting. 

The thing inside Sasha roils and thrashes, trying to take over long enough to get her to move away. _A beast_ , it cries, and its terror leeches into her. _She will kill us without hesitation._

As calmly as she can manage, Sasha looks to Basira. "You didn't tell me you had a Hunter with you." 

Basira makes a noncommittal gesture. "And you wondered how I manage to keep Tim in line," she says, though her tone lacks the humor the words imply. 

Both Daisy and Tim tense, but neither reacts further. 

"As long as you agree to work with us to find Jon, then you do not have to fear," Basira says, positioning herself in such a way that the golden glow of the Archives settles around her like a mantle. 

Ironic, Sasha thinks, for one of the Blind to look so comfortable in that light. 

"No trouble here," Tim says, lifting his hands in a defensive position. 

Daisy turns on her heel and heads back into the Archives. She leaves behind the lantern at Basira's feet. 

Tim waits until she disappears through the open doors before finally relaxing. He takes Sasha's hand and gives it a playful tug. "Come on. Your old room is _just_ as you left it, unmade bed and all."

Sasha tries to take a step, tries to make herself follow after, but every nerve in her body shudders to a halt as she watches Tim pass back over that invisible wall dividing the Archives from the rest of the world. "I can't," she says, the words tasting of anise and tearing at her throat. Her body feels wrong, different. 

Her Archives no longer belong to her. She feels like a stranger that it wants to keep out.

Basira's gaze is heavy when it lands on her, cautious. 

Tim doesn't seem to notice the hesitation. "What? Why not? I _promise_ that I didn't leave another one of those trick spells in there again." 

"It's…" She struggles to find the words, but the more she tries the harder it is to think clearly. "Let me take care of my horse, first," she says, the lie coming easily. "You go on ahead." 

He pouts, but lets go of her hand. "Alright…" With a quick look at Basira, as if to check that it's okay, he gives Sasha one last parting smile before following Daisy to the Archives. 

She watches him go, and wonders after the way the golden field seems to warp and waver around him like a mirage in the heat. 

"Like I said: A lot has happened to the Archives since you left," Basira says softly, as if reading Sasha's thoughts. She picks up the lantern, and the light swings wildly between them. 

"Not just the Archives." Sasha closes her eyes and runs a hand through her hair. "I think I would like to stay out here." 

"For tonight?" 

"For now." She's not too sure if that means for just the night, or for as long as she is here working with the Archives that are no longer hers. 

Basira studies her as they lead their horses to the stables. "What are you so afraid of?"

Sasha considers this as they work, unsaddling and brushing down the horses. It's hard to separate her fears from the thing inside of her. 

Finally, as she accepts the lantern from Basira to keep her company in the dark stables, she takes a deep breath. Tastes the words, and find that they do not taste of anise. "I am afraid that if I return, I will not be able to walk away a second time," she says. 

The thing inside of her is silent and still, echoing her fear, but not enjoying it at all. 

"I've already lost myself to it once," Sasha adds, shouldering her bags and turning her back on Basira. "It will not take from me again."


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Prelude-**  
>  The Eye whispers in a chorus of voices as it lowers Jon into the lake. The story of the Archives. The ever branching futures. The order from chaos that they will bring into the world. 
> 
> "You will see all possibilities," it tells him, as it places one delicate hand to the center of his forehead. 
> 
> "You will know which of them are true, and make them so," it tells him, as it places one hand to the center of his breastbone. 
> 
> Jon takes a breath, and then the water closes over his head. 
> 
> Beneath the surface, everything is muffled. There is only the gentle thrum of his heartbeat. 
> 
> _This is all I can do,_ he thinks as the weight of the Eye focuses on him. A hundred thousand eyes, watching. Learning. Finding its way into the cracks between the pieces of him, filling in the space with a tether to bind them together. _It will have to be enough._
> 
> A scream, garbled through a distance far deeper than the water — sharp with a spell and anger — lances through the connection. 
> 
> The Eye looks away, but in that moment, Jon _knows_. 
> 
> The Eye looks at Georgie, curious. 
> 
> The curiosity of a beast who craves knowledge is a dangerous thing, and it's the one burden that Jon is able to bear. 
> 
> He wrenches his hand free of the cloying waters of the lake. His fingers find the Eye, and wrap around it like a vise.
> 
> The attention of the Eye swerves back to him, all at once, and it digs into him like a hundred thousand knives. Latching into him, hoping to pull the truth from him however unwilling. 
> 
> "I will Know," it snarls, the voices churning like the surface of the lake. "You will not keep anything from me."
> 
>  _But I have to try,_ Jon thinks, desperately, before the pieces of him shatter.

Basira finds her standing at the threshold of the Archives a handful of hours later — the sun just starting to crest the horizon as the world still lingers in sleep. 

"I don't wish to rush you," she says, "but I don't know how much time we have." She's not wearing her gauntlets or breastplate this morning, just ornate golden robes with an undercurrent of black that catches the shadows instead of reflecting the light. 

"I know," Sasha says, and it's a considerable effort to not sound defeated. "I knew what coming with you would entail, I'm just…" She struggles to find the right word, because all the others don't feel adequate enough. Not scared, not nervous. Resigned, perhaps. Exhausted, more like. 

Trapped. 

Basira seems to understand all the same. "I might be able to help ease the transition."

Sasha looks to her, a mess of emotions fighting for control. "How?"

Even three years later, the memory of that moment stays with her. She opened herself to the Eye, and carved out a yawning, unending space inside of her. 

And in that moment, a thing climbed in to fill the void. The pieces of her scattered to the furthest reaches of knowing.

The shock that followed as the connection was severed lingers, clinging to her like the remains of a nightmare. 

"I should be able to mask your presence from the Eye, if only for a little while." Basira tilts her head a degree, studying Sasha like a puzzle, but in that motion Sasha remembers the sigil inscribed in her irises. 

The crescent of a closed eye with three lashes, a mockery of the open one that still reflects in Sasha's own gaze. 

"It is worth a try," Sasha concedes. 

Basira fishes in the leather pouch at her side and withdraws a charcoal stick. "This will only work once. The Eye will learn of your presence through the others."

"It's fine. I wish to speak to the Watcher. I need to know what his future is regarding Jon, so I can decide how to proceed." Sasha closes her eyes as Basira's fingers light beneath her chin. Her head is angled up, and with a steady hand, Basira begins to trace the closed eye upon her forehead. 

For the first time in _years_ , there is silence. 

The thing inside of her stills, and the whispering connection to the Eye can no longer find its way to her. 

Even though Basira pulls away, Sasha remains where she is — savoring the moment for as long as she can let herself. 

When she opens her eyes, the golden haze around the Archives is gone. It is just another building, nothing special, and she is just a woman coming to learn the future. 

She crosses into the Archives. 

The tiles echo her footsteps back to her, doubling down as they bounce off the high windows and distant ceiling. It is not thrown open like it was during her day, no breeze dancing through the hall to dog her heels. 

It is just as quiet. 

The Watcher's chambers are on the far end of the structure, a simple walk from one end to the other. Sasha does not linger, and Basira is close behind. 

She doesn't knock as she reaches the door — the Watcher doesn't need to sleep, as far as she is aware. And she would have known if there was another person here to speak to him.

Elias Bouchard looks up from his desk as she enters, and there is the briefest look of surprise in his dark eyes. "Oh," he says, and the surprise turns to delight. "Sasha James, I was not aware that you would be returning." 

"It comes as a shock to me as well," she replies as dryly as she can manage, because otherwise she might start focusing too much on her sweaty palms. "Good to know that I have not burst into flames upon entering the Archives, despite my banishment." 

Behind her, Basira makes the slightest strained noise, but her expression gives nothing away. 

Elias smiles pleasantly but doesn't comment. "Then what brings you back here, despite your fear of combustion? My Archivist is not currently available, but I didn't think that meant you would be so quick to try and fill the position." His gaze dances to Basira meaningfully. 

"I had my chance, and we all saw how well that went." Sasha pauses, marveling in the silence of the thing inside of her. Normally it would be spitting and raging in anger at the reminder of its failure, but Basira's mark does its job. "It is about the Head Archivist. I understand that he is missing."

He leans back in his chair, folding his hands over his stomach as he observes the two of them. "Jonathan is currently on an important mission from the Eye. You never seemed bothered when Gertrude left for such tasks, so why the concern now?" 

A frown pulls at the corners of her mouth, but she doesn't give in to it. "That is what I am keen to find out. Apparently it is enough of an issue that your Archival assistants thought to seek me out to find him." 

Elias' expression gives nothing away, though there is a hint of amusement in the dark depth of his eyes. 

Sasha can't help the shiver. 

"I do know that he will come back, which I have told Basira when she has asked previously." He offers a smile, but it feels more like a knowing smirk. "You are welcome to serve in his absence, though." 

"I will not get comfortable performing a role that is not mine, Watcher." 

"A wise decision." 

She bites her tongue before she can retort. Even during her time as Gertrude's assistant, she had never quite warmed up to Elias and limited the times she had to speak to him to as little as possible. Conversation with the Watcher fell to the Head Archivist more than the assistants, and even then she tried to be the last one called when he needed one of them. 

Eventually, after the silence spreads into a palpable thing, Elias sighs and shakes his head. He closes his eyes, and Sasha suddenly feels herself sag beneath the weight of gravity — like he had been pinning her to a wall with his gaze, studying the pieces of her that only the connection to the Eye can see. "Then I am curious as to what your motive is for returning. As I currently cannot discern it." 

It is Basira who speaks up, saying, "We are going to find the Archivist." 

He considers this. "If you think that is the best use of your time, then by all means. You and Miss James are welcome to do that." 

"Daisy and Tim have opted to accompany me." 

Against all odds, another ripple of shock passes over Elias' face. Twice in one meeting — this has to be a new record. "You mean to leave me without assistants, while I am already without my Archivist?" 

Basira crosses her arms over her chest in a somewhat challenging posture. "You have Martin." 

Elias snorts and frowns. "Yes, I suppose there is Martin, for all the good he will do me." 

Sasha bristles, though she knows to keep her mouth shut. Martin had been a pleasant soul when she worked with him, always eager to please. She finds it hard to think that he would have changed so much — unless Jon's poor opinion of the man had somehow managed to rub off on Elias. 

"Then you are not without help. And there’s even Peter Lukas still hanging around. Put him to use." Basira gives a single nod, then looks to Sasha. "Please let us know what assistance you will require, and we will depart as soon as you have located Jonathan." 

"She will have to take the time to acclimate herself to the Archives," Elias says. "And seeing as the Eye rejected her last time she tried to bind it to her, it might not view her return so favorably. Without the Archivist to intervene should something happen, well… Be wary of the risk, Basira."

Sasha's fingers curl into fists at her sides, and she hates the realization that she's shaking. Because he's right, because he's speaking for her, because she's afraid of what will happen this time. "It is a risk I am willing to take," Sasha says with more confidence than she really feels. 

But if there is one thing about herself that she is painfully aware of, it's the desire to learn and test every limit set before her. What failed once might not necessarily fail again, and she's aware of the mistakes she made previously. 

Elias sighs and straightens his posture, picking up his pen to signal that the conversation is over. "Then by all means. You have made it impossible for me to discern how this will go, so I only hope that you know what you are both doing." 

"We do." Basira turns on her heel and begins to head for the door to the office. 

Sasha lingers a moment before asking, "What is the golden barrier around the Archives? It was not there before when I left." 

Elias' pen pauses, and slowly, he lifts his head to look at her. "The golden barrier," he repeats, though she's uncertain if he means it as a question or not. 

Basira, too, hesitates at the door, though her confusion is more clearly expressed. 

Then it is something that is not a normal occurrence. 

"I'm certain I don't know what you mean," Elias finally says. "But as you were able to pass through it, I do not think you should worry about it." 

It stings more than it should, because Sasha stayed up the five hours before dawn pacing the edges of the golden barrier — unwilling to study it for fear of what it would mean to her. 

But she had passed over it without harm, only coming to a stop at the doors to the Archives where Basira had found her. 

She wants to press the topic, but Elias' attention fully slips from her and he waves a hand to dismiss them both. So Sasha follows after Basira, back into the main hall. Distantly, she can hear the sound of Tim moving about, but not even that is enough to comfort her. 

Basira stands across from her, a stony set to her mouth and eyes. "Do not let what he says get to you." 

"You clearly have not worked with him for long," Sasha says with a sigh. She lifts one shaky hand to her hair, tugging absently at the strands that have escaped their braid. She wants to ask about Martin, but the words stick to the roof of her mouth and she can't quite get her tongue to work. 

So she sighs again and runs the back of her hand across her forehead — smudging the charcoal mark. "Thank you for your assistance, but this next part is something that I have to do on my own." 

Basira nods. "I will keep Tim occupied," she says, and there is a trace of humor in her tone that doesn't quite make it to her eyes. 

Sasha manages a smile. "Just tell him I'm doing spooky archival things, but I'm a big girl and can take care of myself." 

The joke falls flat, even as she says it, but Sasha doesn't wait around to see what sort of reaction it gets. 

She wipes her sweating, shaking hands on her robes and sets off for the heart of the Archives.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Prelude-**  
>  (She remembers a time when the Archives were familiar to her, their stories imprinted into her veins like they were as much a part of her as she was of them. She would wander through their endless mazes, seeing the futures that had been picked apart and studied, the ones that haven't come true yet.)
> 
> (The Archivist's job is to know the course of things to come, and the assistants’ job is to ensure the pieces of the puzzle are arranged just so.)
> 
> (She had been very good at her job — her 'tenacity' and 'desire to know, and to learn the branching paths in their fullest', according to Gertrude, had made Sasha perfect material to become the next Archivist. She devoted herself to the Archives, to _her_ Archives, and they had been her patient study for years.)
> 
> (By the time Gertrude died, she was alone. Michael and Gerry were both gone — dead? — _gone_ , and she was alone.)
> 
> (And she thought… she thought if she could have _this one thing_ , then it would be alright. Just this one thing that she worked so hard for, devoted every piece of herself to, lost so much to.)
> 
> (Yet it still found one more way to take everything.)

The Stranger might make a sport out of the chase, in a way that would make the Hunt proud, but at the time that it came, Sasha was an easy target. 

It came to her when she had no idea who she was any more, when she was empty and angry and _desperate_. 

As she walks the Archives now, she avoids the path that it took — the one that gouged lines into the tiles as it wore her body. They repaired the floor after she left, or perhaps the mark was never there. Just another thing that made it easy to forget her, as the silence swallowed her howls of anguish. 

Now, it twists and curls uncomfortably through her blood, gnaws on her ribs, tries to push itself back up and out through her mouth to pour vitriol over the precious stories that rejected her. 

She swallows it down in respect to the memory of her time as an assistant here. Her fingers skim the shelves, tracing paths in the dust that has accumulated during her absence. 

"Can't even be bothered to clean the place," she mutters, unable to stop the fond smile. Martin might have given it a go, but she knows that Tim and Jon would not have been so studious. 

The smile drops just as quickly as it forms, concern for the two left behind. She knows what it means to be left behind, and neither of them were suited to the work of the Archives. She can’t fault them for not understanding the kind of love and attention it needs. 

She keeps walking. 

Her idle route takes her to the shelf that fell over during her second month as an assistant, and she remembers the way Michael swore up a storm despite Gerry's sides splitting with laughter. The three of them huddled together, trying to remember where the histories went before Gertrude came to see what they were doing. 

It takes her to the alcove where the Watcher told her that Gertrude had died and that he was in the process of picking a new Head Archivist. How he said it without emotion, like he was delivering that morning's weather, and left before he could see the consequences his words had on her. Perhaps he already knew, and wanted to give her the space that her grief would require, though she doubts it now. 

It takes her past the crossroads of bookshelves, where the domed glass ceiling filters in the light, and there is a compass rose in the middle. This is where she stood her first day in the Archives, as she spun in a slow circle to take in the majesty of this place, the wonder and promises it offered. 

It is where she knelt on her last day in the Archives, where Jon found her. 

She keeps walking. 

The corner where she found Gerry as he struggled to bring his anxiety under control after a fight with Gertrude over a topic she never learned. As he held her hand when she offered it, squeezing it so tight she thought it would break. 

The knoll just outside the window where Tim would practice his footwork with sword in hand, because he knew that she liked to sit at the chair that used to be there. She knew he knew, though she lost track if she picked that chair first for its perfect view out over the countryside, or if he picked the hill on dumb luck and she wandered to the window later. 

The chair is gone now. She broke it. No: the thing inside of her broke it. She wasn't there.

Each story she hears is a thread that binds her back to this place. She walks them all. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Interlude-**  
>  When Sasha turns to enter the Archival stacks, Basira turns and heads to where Martin keeps his office. 
> 
> It's on the second floor, tucked away in a corner, a room that she never took notice of until everything started to go wrong. 
> 
> The door is, of course, closed, and no sounds can be heard from within. 
> 
> But the same way that Sasha knew she could enter Elias' office without checking if he was there or not, Basira knows that Martin is inside. 
> 
> She pounds a fist on the door, wishing she had one of her gauntlets to simply instill more urgency into the sound. "Martin?" she calls, heedless of who else would hear. "Martin, I know you're in there." 
> 
> There's a soft footfall, and she tenses the second before the door swings open and Peter Lukas stares down at her. 
> 
> "Basira," he says warmly, as if they are friends, as if seeing him doesn't make the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. "A little early for a social visit, don't you think?" 
> 
> "Indeed, it is, so please see yourself out, Mr. Lukas. You know where the door is." Basira stands aside and waves a hand in the direction of the walkway. 
> 
> He smiles, amused, and remains standing where he is. "What can we help you with this morning?" 
> 
> She breathes out sharply through her nose and leans around him so she can spot Martin behind his desk. "This is about what I've talked about before. About Jon—" 
> 
> "Don't," Martin says, running a hand over his face. His skin is wan and eyes sunken, and heavens, he looks worse than when she left two days ago. "Basira, I asked that you stop bringing him up." 
> 
> Basira stares at Lukas. She's better than glaring, and she knows that her gaze has enough weight that she doesn't have to resort to the petty expression. 
> 
> She doesn't have to say anything, but he plays along anyway. 
> 
> "Fine, fine. I know when I'm not wanted." He steps into the hall, his stance casual and carefree. "Perhaps I'll go visit Elias, if he's in his—" 
> 
> Basira closes the door on his face. The sound of him stuttering to silence gives her immense satisfaction. 
> 
> Martin sits hunched over his desk, looking more like he's being prepared for an execution than a conversation between friends. "Basira, _please_ —" 
> 
> "Sasha is back." 
> 
> His hands fall to the table with a heavy thump and his head whips up so fast that it makes _her_ neck hurt. "Why." There's a pause before the end of the word turns up, as if he belatedly remembers it should be a question. "Why did she come back?" 
> 
> "Since you refuse to help," she says, taking no joy in his full-body flinch, "she's the only one who will be able to find Jon. Or at least, she's our last hope."
> 
> He makes a sound in the back of his throat, a weak and strangled groan. "You know why I can't—" 
> 
> "I don't." Basira laughs in disbelief. "I really don't, Martin." She waves a hand over her shoulder at the door to his office. "All I know is that one day you start getting close to Lukas, and you tell us that it's all worked out. And I will trust you, because Jon trusted you."
> 
> Again, another flinch. This one is like a sob, wracking his whole body.
> 
> "But Jon's not here, and Elias isn't going to lift a finger. So I will. And Sasha will. And Tim and Daisy." Basira lets the words hang in the air between them. She closes her eyes and does a steady inhale and exhale. "I _really_ hope you know what you're doing," she finally says, but when she looks up, he's gone.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Prelude-**  
>  The footsteps that approach her study room are careful, but heavy. Someone not used to being light on their feet, but also trying their best to not make a noise. 
> 
> Sasha knows right away it must be the newest assistant. 
> 
> She knows Tim's footsteps, someone who has never tried to tread carefully a day in his life. She is starting to learn Jon's, feather-light and unobtrusive — so much so that he has startled her several times when he's approached. 
> 
> (Every so often, she thinks she'll hear one of the others — Michael's echoing but deliberate step, Gerry's casual shuffle, Gertrude's sharp and pointed _tap tap tap_. But it is just the echoes of their memories. The Archives trying to keep her company when she is lonely, though she really wishes that they wouldn't try quite so hard.) 
> 
> A head pokes around the door, shortly followed by the shoulders and torso of the new assistant. "Uh-uhm, I'm sorry, are you Sasha?" 
> 
> "I am." She spins her pen around between her fingers before rising to her feet. "I'm sorry, the Watcher didn't give me your name—" 
> 
> "Oh. I'm Martin. Blackwood. Uh, Martin Blackwood, nice to meet you." He takes her offered hand and gives it a firm shake and gives her a shaky smile. 
> 
> "I take it that the Watcher was busy and sent you to me instead," she says with a smile of her own, and that seems to put him at ease. 
> 
> He nods and fusses with the cuff of his coat. "Yes, he… Seemed rather distracted." 
> 
> Sasha holds in her sigh and leads Martin out into the hall. "Then I'll be happy to show you around. There's not much to it, but I'm always available if you have any questions."
> 
> Martin nods again and follows after her, and she's suddenly overcome with the feeling that she has a puppy on her heels instead of a new coworker. 
> 
> But she catches the unabashed awe on his face as he listens to her words, and she knows that he will do just fine.

There is something missing, but Sasha doesn't know what it is. 

The connection to the Eye is there, hovering, waiting. It is like she has the individual pieces of a spell pulled together, but they are waiting for the final key. A catalyst of some sort. 

Does she need to go back to the Watcher for him to accept her on behalf of the Eye? Does she need something belonging to the Archivist, a focus while he is missing? 

When she reaches, she can feel it humming, and when she lets her senses brush against it, it fills her with a fuzzy warmth. She can pluck the strings to see where the others are, and know how they are tethered to this place. 

Basira's dark cord, threaded with gold, disappears off in the direction of the offices and the study rooms. Daisy's, sharp like wire but dusty and fragile, curls out onto the grounds. 

Tim's burns, fire like teeth biting at the edges of her with an unfamiliar ferocity. 

She pulls back so fast that she's sent reeling, dizzy with the phantom pain. Sasha extends a hand to catch herself on a shelf and instead someone catches onto her. 

And then she feels like she's floating — the fire replaced by ice against her back, keeping her aloft. The sky overhead is dark, pitch, not a star in sight. When she breathes, her lungs constrict and water fills her nose as the hand that caught her pushes her down. 

And then the hand is gone and she's standing knee-deep in the middle of a lake as the idea of trees crowd the shore and when she looks her arms aren't there, just darkness — like the sky, like when she closed her eyes and the Stranger's opened. 

And then the first Eye opens, and the next and the next as it sees her, coils around the threads that she gathered, tugs on them hard enough to send her sprawling and she's somewhere else, on the shore of a different lake, this one vast and pale with fog, and Martin is kneeling before her with his arms around her shoulders and he is _freezing_. 

"Sasha?" he asks, and she gets the feeling he has been repeating her name.

"What happened," she gasps, lifting one hand to cling to his arm, then his shoulder, as she tries to heave herself upright. 

That's when she notices that everything is gone. No, not gone. Not like when Basira drew the closed eye on her forehead to summon the Blind to her. Muted. Softer. Indistinct, the way everything is under water. 

Martin lets her stand, and glances over his shoulder to observe their surroundings. 

"Where are we?" She spins in a slow circle, wobbling a bit as she regains her balance. 

"I think," he says, cautious — testing every word before he says them. "I think that is where Jon is." 

"What, here?" Sasha spreads her arms to encompass the expanse. 

Martin shakes his head, and suddenly she realizes that he's not looking around. 

He's just avoiding looking at _her_. 

_You scared him bad last time, didn't you?_ the thing inside of her purrs, delighted at her distress. 

"Martin…?" Sasha reaches out and lets the tips of her fingers brush his shoulder, but despite how solid he had been seconds before when holding her, her hand goes right through. "Martin, what's happened?"

The question seems too big, all of a sudden, and she regrets even listening to Basira. She never should have left her cottage. 

"Right now, we're in what you would call a pocket dimension, I think." Martin pushes himself to his feet and knocks the sand off his pants. Finally, he turns to her, expression drawn and exhausted. "We're safe here." 

"Safe? From _what_?" 

He gives her a meaningful look that quickly dissolves into something far more desperate. "Sasha, what you just saw… I think that's where Jon is." 

She wants answers, and admittedly, that was one of her questions. But it's not the answer she wants, and it wasn't the question that was highest up on her priority list. 

For a brief moment, she wonders if she would be able to force him to answer. But the thought leaves the taste of anise on her tongue, and so she pushes it to the back of her mind. 

There's a sense of urgency in his words, though everything else about him is withdrawn and muted. That's when she realizes that she hadn't been able to hear his footsteps or sense his presence while in the Archives. 

"No one will tell me what happened to you," she says, reaching for him again without thinking. 

Martin flinches back. "A lot has happened since you left," he says, and she hates that this is the answer that everyone thinks is suitable enough to give her. "You were… The first, I think." 

"The first what?" 

"The first to crack," he says, and it is like she is suddenly looking through a fractured mirror. "There's something in the Archives that's breaking us apart." Martin is still able to speak, despite the heavy fog that seems to emanate from him with each breath. "Things bigger and stronger than us offering a solution." 

This time, when Sasha reaches out, he lets her put her hand to his broken chest. "And this is your solution." 

"And this is mine." 

"So you won't help us look for Jon." 

"I _can't_ ," he says, and she can feel the sorrow in his words. His shoulders sag, and the veneer is back and he is whole once again. "We can help in different ways, and the only way that I can is to make sure that whatever is trying to get to Jon is distracted enough that you can get to him first." 

Sasha takes a hesitant step closer. He stands his ground, and gives a small nod. 

So she closes the distance and wraps her arms around his shoulders, having to stand up on her tiptoes to reach him properly. 

Martin returns her embrace. "Please find him," he says. "None of this means anything if he's not safe." 

"I'll do all I can, Martin." She gives him one final squeeze before stepping back and letting him go. "Please, you stay safe too." 

"I'm fine," he reassures, but she's not too sure how much she believes it. "I'm going to send you back now, but go to the others as soon as you can. This place has a way of sticking with you." 

She wants to ask him what that is supposed to mean, if he’s not in danger of being pulled in completely, but by the time the question forms on the tip of her tongue, she's standing back at the center of the compass rose in the Archives — fog licking off her skin like steam, and the connection to the Eye lingering just beneath the surface. 

She remembers the eyes opening across her skin as she stood in the lake, and a shiver runs down her spine. 

Sasha takes a breath to steady herself, and rubs the heel of her hand over her forearm.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Prelude-**  
>  The only warning Jon gets is a shrill, high-pitched, " _YOU_ ," before Melanie launches herself across the room at him. 
> 
> The warning does not alert him to the knife until it's in his palm and Basira is wrestling Melanie back. 
> 
> The blade clatters to the floor, and there are several shocked seconds before the pain registers in his hand. Distantly, some small, barely functioning part of his brain lets him know that there are still voices as he watches the blood swell over his mottled and burned skin. 
> 
> "You have _no right_ —"
> 
> "Melanie, stop—"
> 
> "He does not get to come back here after _weeks_ —!" 
> 
> "I…" he starts, slowly, feeling the weight of Melanie's glare. "I was requested by the Watcher—" 
> 
> Melanie snorts, and even Basira doesn't seem that impressed. 
> 
> "It was a mission for the Eye," he says with a bit more force. Jon pulls a kerchief from his pocket and wraps it around his hand. He retreats a safe distance and resorts to sarcasm to defend himself. "I know you hold no loyalty to me or the Archives, but I would have hoped that you knew what my job entailed by now." 
> 
> "Daisy and Tim are _gone_. You don't get to carry on like you just don't care!" 
> 
> He does care. He cares so much that it physically aches whenever he thinks about it — that he bound Tim to the Archives to keep him safe and he still left, that he forgave Daisy despite the painful scar on his throat but of course that wouldn't have been enough—
> 
> Jon closes his eyes and presses the cloth to the wound to distract himself with the dull throb. "If I don't, then their losses are for nothing. You are no different, Melanie, so take care that you do not lose yourself as well." 
> 
> He brushes past the two women, biting back the question that he wanted to ask ( _Where is Martin, is he alright?_ ). His office is just down the hall, and if he can reach it before Melanie finds another knife, then it will be fine. 
> 
> For the moment, it will be fine.
> 
> "Coward!" Melanie spits after him. 
> 
> Basira doesn't chastise her, and honestly, Jon is inclined to agree.

"So, tell us again: _How_ did you know to find this lake?" Tim kicks at a fallen log with a frown before hopping up onto it. 

"The Eye showed me where to go," Sasha says and accepts his hand to help her over the log. 

"So you're like, back on speaking terms with it now?" He makes a little sound of amusement and falls into step behind her, not bothering to lend a hand to Basira or Daisy who bring up the rear of their procession. "Or is it _seeing_ terms. Get it? Seeing?" 

Sasha can't help but roll her eyes and he laughs. "Not quite. My connection with the Eye isn't as strong as it had been, or as complete as the Archivist's. But I think it wants me to find Jon as much as we do, so it's letting me access it." 

She doesn't tell them about Martin — about how she thinks that he was the catalyst that she needed. The one piece of her connection to the Archives that she couldn't find on her own. And, perhaps, his own desire to find Jon helped the situation along. 

"And you saw him here?" Basira calls, wiping her hands off on her robes as she catches up. 

"More importantly, you're certain there's a lake here?" Tim squints between the trees, craning his head this way and that. It's nearly impossible to see through the branches with no hint of a break. 

Sasha pushes through the last bit of foliage and yelps as the ground cover immediately gives way to the shallows of a lake. 

Tim catches onto one of her hands to help steady her, and then to keep his own balance as he picks his way onto the nonexistent shore. 

"Yes," she replies simply. "This is it." 

Despite the sun that beat down on the field where they left their horses, the trees only grow thicker and denser the farther they travel. Just like in her vision, there is a jagged circle of sky above, but it is a clear and cloudless blue. It gives her a little bit of comfort to know that she won't have to find out if the stars are gone from here or not. 

"There's more of a shore on the far end," Daisy observes, speaking up for the first time since they left the Archives. She shoulders her sword and plunges into the shallows without hesitation. 

Basira does linger for a moment. She looks like she wants to say something, and Sasha waits patiently for whatever it might be. But all she does is sigh and shake her head and follow after Daisy. 

She watches them go before closing her eyes and trying to see if there is anything else she can pick up without their interference. Beside her, Tim's presence is warm — stifling, to the point that it feels like she's sitting too close to an open fire. Further, trailing behind Basira, a cloying darkness acting as a shroud to protect from prying eyes. 

Or perhaps only one Eye in particular. 

Sasha pushes further, into the water, letting the ripples carry her senses across the surface of the lake. If Jon is here, there should be some trace of him — his connection to the Eye as a lifeline that she could tug on to find him. But it is empty. 

Everything here is silent and empty in a way she has never felt before, not even when she was hollowed out for that thing to step inside of her, not even in that quiet space that Martin pulled her to. 

Instead of feeling safe in the absence of some sort of weight, she feels the force of all of them at once. Alone, blind, foreign, frustrated, stifled. 

She comes back to herself as Tim gives her hand a faint squeeze before withdrawing his grip. It helps, a little, and she can breathe easier without feeling the heat in her lungs. 

He begins the precarious process of trying to pull off his boots while standing. "If I had known we were going to go for a swim, I wouldn't have bothered getting so dressed up." 

"Now that's a lie if I've ever heard one. I don't think I've seen you ever dress down before," Sasha says, grateful that she doesn't sound as nervous as she feels. 

Tim's eyebrows wiggle, though him hopping around on one foot greatly diminishes the allure he might have been aiming for. It's a wonder he hasn't fallen into the lake yet. "I'm glad you think I'm incredibly fancy au naturel." 

She laughs and splashes water in his direction. "Fanciest fanny of the Institute." 

"What? You've seen others?" Free of both boots and hose, Tim slips and stumbles into the water beside her. "I thought mine was special." 

"It's been three years," Sasha says, and the distance of the time between them wedges its way in like a physical presence. 

Tim's smile dies, settling into a grim line. Before, it had always been strange to see him with a frown. But it looks comfortable there, like he's been wearing it for a long time. "Yeah," he finally says, and that wedge drives the distance wider. "It has been a long time."

She wants to reach for him, but she doesn't have the words to offer. She doesn't know what she would say, even if she did try. 

When she was kicked out of the Archives, he promised that he would follow. Only he never did, and now she's not too sure who the man who stands before her really is. 

_Not after he saw what you became_ , the voice says. _What you were capable of. What we were capable of. When he knows what I did— _

"Stop," Sasha says aloud, the panic mounting as the thing tries to strangle her with the memories. 

Tim steps back, eyes widening, and the thing inside of her laughs. _He's scared of you too._

She doesn't need it to tell her that. She can taste the fear. 

Before either of them get the chance to react — to apologize or explain — a single arrow zips through the space between them. 

They leap apart as the arrow plops harmlessly into the water. Tim draws his sword and moves to stand in front of Sasha even as she prepares the words of a spell. 

"Who's there?" Tim shouts, and Sasha is surprised to hear real anger instead of bravado in his tone. 

From behind them, Basira calls something, but Sasha's attention is focused on where the arrow had come from. 

"Oh," a voice drawls from between the trees, accompanied by the cracking sound of a branch. "I missed." 

Tim's posture tenses for an instant before he drops his arms to his side. "Wait… _Melanie_?"

Two women pick their way from the final line of tree cover and pull to a stop on the bank. One has a staff strapped to her back and a tiny gold dragon curled around her shoulders, and her dark eyes settle immediately on Sasha. The other, tapping her bow against her thigh and spinning an arrow between her fingers, is blind. 

"What the fuck?" Tim says before bursting into laughter. "You're still firing arrows?" 

"I promise I can still turn your ass into a quiver if you call my aim into question," the archer says. 

The woman with the dragon puts her hand on the archer's shoulder, then steps forward past Tim to stand before Sasha. "You're here for Jon," she says. It's not a question.

Sasha studies her, feels the chill of death twining around her, but no connection to the Eye. "We are." 

"My name is Georgie. My partner is Melanie, though I believe most of you know her from when she worked at the Archives." The dragon on her shoulder chirps, and Georgie's face softens into the hint of a smile. "And this is the Admiral." 

Leaning a degree to the side to look at Melanie, Sasha can see the severed cords of anger and knowing — things lingering beneath the surface, but unable to control her the same way the thing locked away in Sasha's chest can. She tries not to feel jealous, but the thing stokes the feeling with glee. 

"I'm Sasha—" she starts, before an ugly expression comes over Melanie's face and a pulse of that anger leaves the taste of a bitter root on her tongue. "I see you've heard of me." The statement comes out as flat as she can manage, but the jealousy clings to the anger and makes it worse. 

"I see you made it out just fine," Melanie snaps. 

Sasha isn't too sure if it's supposed to be as sarcastic as it sounds, considering the fact that the woman couldn't possibly understand what it took for her to be standing there. "I think both of us had to make different sacrifices to be free of the Archives. Willingness aside." 

Georgie moves back to Melanie's side, taking her hand and whispering something soft that can't be heard over the waves of Basira and Daisy's approach. 

"What is going on?" Basira asks as she joins them. Then, in surprise, "Melanie? I didn't think that you would want to be involved." 

"That's me, always unexpected." She tilts her head a degree, listening, before her brow twitches. "Daisy." 

"Melanie." 

"It's like the gang's all back together." 

"Almost," Basira says with an amused snort. 

Georgie glances between all of them before turning back to Sasha. "Where is Martin?" 

The others go silent, exchanging uneasy looks. 

"He's still at the Archives," Sasha begins slowly. "He's… helping, in his own way."

"But he's alright?" 

Her shoulders rise and fall in a helpless shrug. "That's a very difficult question to answer for any of us, but he's trying." She can feel Basira's gaze on her but refuses to meet it. "Do you have news about Jon?" 

"Can we not have this conversation while standing knee-deep in water?" Tim grumbles, returning his sword to its sheath. 

Basira gestures for them to follow, and the small procession wades through the lake to the patch of shore. Georgie helps Melanie down the bank, and the two of them continue to hold a whispered conversation. 

Once on the shore, Sasha wrings out the hem of her skirts and pulls off her boots as well. "I hope you have an idea for what we need to do here, because I'm coming up empty." 

"I think I know what you will need." Georgie unstraps the staff from her back and props it up against a tree, and the Admiral jumps from her shoulder onto one of the lower branches. "I saw what—" Here, her breath catches, and her hand trembles as she fiddles with the pin holding her shawl in place. "I saw what happened here." 

"Oh," Sasha says. She rubs at her arm, but that doesn't stop the feeling of the eyes opening across her skin. "But I don't feel him here." 

"I've seen a piece of him." 

"Define _a piece_ ," Tim interrupts, looking back at the lake. "I am not prepared for an exploded Archivist. Ow." He rubs his shoulder where Daisy smacks him. 

Sasha shakes her head, wrapping her arms around her stomach as she begins to put it together. "No, not… Not like that. It's a… I suppose it's like the pieces of his essence. Or his spirit. The things that make up Jonathan Sims." She looks at all of them, finally landing on Georgie's pinched expression. "The things that make him human." 

Georgie gives a single nod. "I'm a necromancer. I deal with death and spirits — he's not dead. But he's dying. If we don't bring the pieces of him back, then the Eye will have its Archivist, and the End will have Jon."


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Prelude-**  
>  She can hear the softest tread a few rows over, and figures that someone from the main Institute arrived while she was busy. Tim is the only one that seeks her out, and the others she only has a passing knowledge of. 
> 
> But when the hands close over her eyes, Sasha can't help the startled squeak and she drops the book that she's holding. 
> 
> "Guess who," a voice says, the tone pitched low and ominous to disguise who it might actually be. 
> 
> She purses her lips and starts to lift her hands to guess by feel, but the person says, "Uh-uhhhh! That’s cheating." 
> 
> "I would think that just Knowing it would be cheating." 
> 
> "Then consider this practice." 
> 
> There's very few options of who it could be, but she falls still and stretches her senses out anyway — the way Gertrude taught her, plucking and pulling on the threads binding the Eye's vision _just so_ so she can let an image take shape. 
> 
> The person covering her eyes has strong ties, sharp and reluctant, but there. He _also_ was supposed to be back several days ago. 
> 
> "Gerard Keay, are you slacking off on your work?" Sasha finally says, and he laughs as he lets her go. She spins around to face him. 
> 
> "If a man enjoys what he does, he never works a day in his life!" he intones in the same dramatic voice. When she smacks his arm, he laughs again and holds up his hands to defend himself. 
> 
> "Then what does that make you?" 
> 
> He considers the question as Sasha stoops to pick up her dropped book. "A slacker?" 
> 
> She opens her mouth to make another quip when she spots the smear of red poking up from just beneath his collar. "You're hurt." 
> 
> Gerry adjusts his coat and brushes his hair over his shoulder to hide the mark. "It's nothing. It's mostly healed." 
> 
> Sasha bats his hands away and tugs at the collar of his shirt to get a better look. "You should be resting!" She herds him over to one of the reading tables and forces him down into a chair. "What happened?" 
> 
> "Run-in with a friend of the Slaughter. It's fine. I took care of it." He bites out the sentences without any emotion. "I got the report Gertrude needed and that's the important thing." 
> 
> She sighs and clicks her tongue, tugging at his coat to get him to take it off. "The important thing is that you're safe," she says and braids his hair back. "Now, I know you carry emergency medical supplies for situations like these. Get it out, and let me take a look." 
> 
> Gerry gives a long-suffering sigh, but there is the hint of a fond smile as he pulls the bandages and a flask of strong alcohol out of the pouches at his sides. "You care too much for a place like this, Sash," he says softly, but tilts his head and subjects himself to her help. 

"Okay, hold on. Go back to the part where you just _met_ the Avatar of the End? And he told you that there's a bit of Jon in the lake?" Tim paces in a tight line on the shore, running his hands through his hair in frustration. "That doesn't make sense." 

Melanie snorts. "It makes perfect sense." 

"It's as I said: I saw Jon in trouble in my dream, and so Melanie and I set out to head to the Archives. On our way there, we met Oliver and he told us to come here instead." Georgie glances to Melanie. "He's doing what he can, but even he is not completely powerful enough to stop what happened." 

Daisy's voice, when she speaks, is a low and dangerous growl. "And what _did_ happen?"

This time, Georgie spares a glance at Sasha, but Sasha picks absently at a loose thread on the hem of her skirts. "I believe he was attempting to perform a ritual of some kind with the Eye. But then… I interrupted it." 

"So it's _your_ fault?" Daisy summarizes. She seems completely unfazed by Melanie's snarl of warning. 

"In a sense, I suppose. But I don't know the point of what Jon was attempting. He… He didn't tell me, when last we spoke." Georgie rubs the top of her dragon's head as he butts up against her thigh. "But I know that we are the only ones capable of saving him, and for that we need Sasha." 

Everyone turns to look at her then — everyone but Melanie, who keeps her face angled towards the fire that they started at their makeshift camp. 

Tim rounds on Basira. "Did you know? Is that why you went to go bring her back, because you needed her to just be another tool for Jon?" 

"No," Basira replies. "No, I didn't…" She trails off, thinking about this before shaking her head. 

"It's fine, Tim." Sasha pushes herself to her feet and dusts off her skirts. Four pairs of eyes follow her movements, and Melanie just snorts again. "Next to the Archivist and the Watcher, I have the strongest connection to the Eye. Even after my dismissal. Sometimes the only way to be helpful is to be useful, and right now, I'm the only one who can find Jon." 

She forces herself to hold Tim's gaze, watch the frustration and anger play out over his face as he struggles to keep himself in check. "It was my choice to come back. I knew what it would mean, to some extent." 

Georgie stands as well, shifting the Admiral onto Melanie's shoulders. "The sooner we get to work, the sooner we can bring him back. Do you know what you have to do?" 

"I have an idea." Sasha removes her belts and pouches and lays them out next to her boots. She ties her hair back in a quick braid, then heads down the shore to the lake. 

Georgie follows without saying anything. 

They come to a stop in the middle of the lake, far enough away that the others will not be able to hear their conversations. The water only comes up to her waist, and it is as cold as she remembers from her vision. 

Sasha tilts her head back and gazes up at the clear sky above. "There's still enough daylight." 

Georgie looks as well, then breathes in deep. "I hope you are right." 

With a breath of her own, Sasha kicks out her legs and tilts back, allowing the water to keep her afloat. The ripples of her movement send little waves against her ears and forehead, and she swims in and out of a muffled silence. "I need you to be a tether to Jon, and that line between life and death. Can you do that?" 

She takes Sasha's hand in one of her own, and the other smooths over Sasha's brow. "Hold on tight," Georgie says before covering Sasha's eyes with her hand. 

The effect is instantaneous. 

The darkness of Georgie's palm is replaced by the starless night sky, and the thing made entirely of eyes has its hands on her breastbone and on her forehead and it _shoves_. 

Sasha only has a moment to inhale one desperate breath before she's plunging down into the water. 

She doesn't fall. The water has too strong a grip on her limbs. It lowers her down slowly, almost gently, if it wasn't so suffocating. 

When she sees the first of the thick, black tendrils, Sasha grabs it with both hands and uses it to propel herself further on. The only thing she can hear is the bubbles streaming from her nose and lips and the thudding heartbeat, and she thinks that she might run out of air before she hits the bottom — unsure of what that means, how real this is, what would happen if she tries— 

She tumbles suddenly into free-fall, passing through water and silt like the time the floorboards of an abandoned house gave out beneath her and she fell down a story. 

The last of the air is knocked from her lungs as someone catches her, and she gasps. 

"Careful," the person says, and at that single word her heart stops. That voice. These hands. It shouldn't be. "I've got you, Sash."

Slowly, afraid of what she'll find, Sasha lifts her gaze to see the face of the man who caught her, and Gerry gives a crooked grin.

"You look like you've seen a ghost," he says, and she gives a shuddering, wrenching sob before throwing her arms around his neck. "Alright, alright. I've got you," he repeats, his hand against her back to keep her upright. 

"Your jokes are always the worst," she says into his chest. "What are you doing here?" 

"Well, you know… realm of the dead… me being dead. It all makes sense, if you think about it." Gerry sets her down and she takes a moment to try and regain her composure. "I think the more important question is what are _you_ doing here? You're not… Are you?"

She wipes at the lingering tears clinging to her eyelashes. "No. It's… the Archivist." 

His expression flickers before settling on understanding. "Ah. So that's what this is about. I was worried this would have been a social visit."

"I was told that a piece of him would be here." 

"Yes…" Gerry draws out the word awkwardly and rubs the back of his head. "In a manner of speaking." 

"I need it." She waits for a beat, and when he doesn't immediately pass something over to her, she holds out her hand. "Please." 

He gives her a pleading look before taking her hand in both of his own. "It's not a physical item. It will be a mark on you." 

Sasha hesitates, lifting her free hand to press against her chest. The thing inside of her is unusually silent. "I already bear the mark of the Stranger. I will take the mark of the End if it means saving Jonathan."

Gerry's sigh is pained and he runs a hand over his face. "I always told you you cared too much for the Archives, Sasha." 

"So did you, in your own way." She presses her palm to his cheek, then pulls him in for another hug. "I miss you." 

"That place was never for me, and it didn't even have the audacity to be the thing to kill me in the end." He laughs and hugs her back. "But as good as it is to see you, let's not keep you here any longer." 

Gerry's fingers, cool and calloused, just as familiar as they've always been even in death, press against the pulse point on both of her wrists. He closes his eyes and focuses. A second, then two, and then a shock of ice cold pain pierces through her skin. 

She swears that her heart stops for a moment, but as soon as the pain fades, she can feel it rabbit-quick beneath his grip. "Oh, is that all?" she jokes, breathless. "You should have seen the Stranger—"

Something wraps around her forearm and gives a ferocious tug — sending her off balance and almost ripping her from Gerry's grasp. 

He lashes out, the knife already in his hand even if she didn't see him reach for it, and a black tendril falls away to dissolve into an oil slick at their feet. 

"What is happening?" she asks, slapping away another that reaches for her hips. 

"Where is your body?" 

"In — in a lake. Floating in the lake where Jon disappeared—" 

Gerry grips her shoulders and gives her a firm shake until her eyes focus on him. The black tendrils are crawling up her ankles now, though they seem to avoid Gerry. "Do you have a tether? Something to pull you back?"

She thinks of Georgie and nods. 

"You have to go," he says, and clasps the side of her neck with one hand. He leans his forehead against hers, and she can feel the spark and prickle of the Eye. "Sasha, don't let me find you here again unless you have a very good excuse." 

"I promise," she manages before the water swallows her whole and she's drowning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Interlude-**  
>  (The scene you see is thus:
> 
> On the shore, Tim struggles against Melanie's grip, screaming for a name you know is your own. There's real fear there, and you know its taste — can remember it from when he saw you before. That utter, horrifying fear because he knows what it could mean for you.
> 
> Basira drags Georgie away, both women ashen and terrified, but Georgie is an easier charge than Tim. She goes limply, but willingly. 
> 
> And there, thrashing in the middle of the lake, the Hunter pins down the thing that wears your skin. You feel its scream in your throat, clawing and hungry for air. But the Hunter doesn’t flinch. She just holds you under.) 


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Prelude-**  
>  _There’s a wolf just beneath Daisy’s skin._
> 
> That’s what Basira had said. It’s not like Jon had reason to doubt her — she’s always been straight forward and to the point. So when she said something that sounded like hyperbole, he took it at face value. 
> 
> What he didn’t realize was that she meant it so _literally_. 
> 
> But it's her. The possibility that this isn't Daisy doesn't even cross his mind.
> 
> It's hard to make a connection to the Eye down here, if he is even headed down any more. Through. Past. Beyond. 
> 
> But it's her.
> 
> "Daisy," he says, and the wolf snarls. 
> 
> She thrashes about and knocks dirt loose — sending clods of it down into any vacant space. Her fur is matted and patchy. Months in the cloying darkness robbing her of everything she might have clung to, the last shreds keeping her fully human finally wearing away into nothing. "Stay back," she says with a mouth full of teeth made for biting and tearing. "Whatever you've come here for, stay back." 
> 
> "It's Jon. You know me, Daisy." He approaches anyway, his eyes on hers, hand held in front of him. "You gave me a scar, once." 
> 
> "I've given lots of people scars. I've taken more than that from others." There's no space left for her to retreat, but she tries anyway. Squirms and writhes as the dirt reforms around her — never enough for freedom, barely enough for a breath. 
> 
> Jon presses a hand to her flank as soon as he is close enough, fingers twining around what fur he can as she attempts to twist away. "Come back to us, Daisy." He closes his eyes and _reaches_ , looking for that tether of razor wire, buried deep beneath the pieces of her that have scabbed over these long, dark months. 
> 
> "I'm sorry," he says, because it will hurt. 
> 
> "I'm sorry," he says, because he couldn't come sooner. 
> 
> "I'm sorry," he says, and pulls. 

It's happening all over again. 

Sasha wakes up in a body that no longer belongs to her — watching as if from far away, unable to feel the edges of where she begins and where the thing ends. 

She can feel nails, sharp and curved, pierce the skin of her neck, the pressure of a hand over her windpipe. Claws digging into her side as the thing struggles to free itself from the Hunter's grasp. 

When she opens her mouth to scream, water rushes in and she chokes — the sound garbled and strained. 

_Let me go!_ she tries, and her legs kick in frustration. 

The thing wearing her skin howls with her mouth. It wedges a hand beneath Daisy's chin to try and push her away. "I will be free," it snarls. 

Daisy doesn't seem at all bothered by the desperate clawing at her face, lips pulled back to reveal teeth that are too long — too inhuman. "I tolerated you so long as you weren't a liability." She squeezes harder, and the muscles of her arms strain as she struggles to hold Sasha beneath the surface of the lake. 

She gasps, struggling for breath, struggling for something to pull her back into control. 

Before, it had been Jon, but all she has of him now is a mark on her soul of a small, useless piece of him. 

But Daisy has one as well. She just needs to reach it. 

Sasha twines the meager bit of power she can scrape together with the Stranger's. _I won't let you win_ , she says, shoving her hand over Daisy's face. _I won't let you turn me._

"Too late," the thing says with a laugh and eagerly lets her nails dig into Daisy's skin. "Fair play." 

It's getting harder to think, her lungs burning from lack of air and water slowly rising up to her ankles. The black cables grow thicker as they crawl up her legs and her thighs. 

Daisy tries to shake the hand free, but the thing holds on. "Monster." 

The Stranger laughs, delighted. "Takes one to know one." 

Sasha can feel the skin beneath her hands shifting, changing, and she tries to latch onto the sliver of the Hunt struggling to break free. If she can get it back under control, then it will give her the chance to breathe. 

It cuts into her as she gathers it in her arms, leaving twisting scars to join the twin marks on her wrists. But she doesn't care. 

When she opens her mouth to scream, the Stranger does the same. 

Daisy yelps in pain and her grip relaxes for just a second, but that's enough. 

Sasha reaches, having to strain against the weight of limbs that aren't controlled by her. Her arms jerkily follow the movement like a poorly constructed puppet. _Enough._ She presses her hand to her chest, and the Stranger tries to resist. 

"You can't control me," it says as she digs her hand deeper in between her ribs. "I know what you fear, what you _crave_." 

Sasha curls her fingers into a fist until she can feel the mark of the Stranger squirming in her grasp. _I want my body back._

Anise and iron flood her tongue, and she coughs the water out of her flooded lungs. Her legs give out from beneath her the instant she gets back to her feet. She sinks to her knees and the water laps at her chin and into her open mouth. 

Daisy's grip returns to her shoulder — a warning instead of a helping hand — but she knocks it away as she struggles to keep her head above water. 

"It's me," she gasps, throat raw and aching but her own. "Stop. It's me." 

The inhuman twist to Daisy's features takes too long to settle back to indifference. But the Hunter lurks beneath the surface and Sasha can read the promised threat in her pale eyes. 

"Sasha!" Tim crashes into the lake the instant Melanie releases him. He struggles through the shallow water as she tries to stand. When she reaches for him, he catches her and helps her upright. 

Even his warmth isn't enough to calm the trembling of her body. "Is Georgie okay?" she asks. "I didn't hurt her, did I?" 

"She's fine." His arms tighten around her, and that's when she notices that he's shaking as well. "Scared, but fine. It— You—" Tim trails off, but doesn't release his grip. 

She understands. 

Daisy remains standing there, stony expression firmly in place. "What guarantee do we have that you won't try to kill one of us again?" 

"Hey—" Tim starts, pulling back to round on Daisy. 

Sasha can feel the surge of heat beneath his skin at his anger, and places her hand between his shoulder blades. "No more guarantee than we have that you won't, Hunter."

Daisy's lip curls in a silent snarl, but she quickly gets it back under control. "My role in the Archives is to ensure monsters don't find their way in. It is what the Archivist bound me to do, and I don't care who that means." For an instant her eyes flicker to Tim before returning to bore into Sasha. "Jon managed to subdue the thing inside of you once, but he's not here to do it again. Are you strong enough to keep it at bay?" 

_No_ , the thing says, and she has to bite her tongue from repeating it. 

"I will have to be," she answers instead.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Prelude-**  
>  Jon fights the urge to glance down. "Let him go." 
> 
> Jude stands across from him, her grin a sharp line across her ageless face. "No." She crouches, so he's forced to follow, to keep his glare on her. "Look at him, Archivist. You really think you can help him?" 
> 
> She grips Tim's chin, and he grits his teeth around a groan of pain. Smoke starts to curl around her fingertips and the skin begins to sizzle as he writhes. 
> 
> Jon’s stomach flips uneasily, but he swallows it down and forces himself to say, "There are other ways of dealing with anger."
> 
> "Not like this. He _needs_ this, something that's his to control." 
> 
> Jon doubts that, but he's never been able to connect with Tim — not after what happened with Sasha. 
> 
> She carries on, heedless of his internal struggle. When she glances at Tim, her expression is fond, almost proud. "When everything feels like it's slipping from your grasp, sometimes it's easier to just burn it down, isn't it? First your brother, then the woman you love — and you've just been so powerless to stop it as the Stranger walks around in their skin." 
> 
> Tim's chest heaves as he struggles for breath, the dry and broken sobs barely audible as Jude shushes him and pats his head. He is barely holding on to consciousness, and if Jon doesn't do something soon, he'll end up with an uncontrollable wildfire. 
> 
> "Are you a betting woman, Jude?" 
> 
> She thinks about this, obviously amused by the prospect. Jon tries not to watch the way her fingers seem to melt the longer that they toy with Tim's hair. He tries not to watch the heat haze shimmering around Tim's body. "Depends on the nature of the wager, I guess." 
> 
> "For as long as I'm Head Archivist, Tim is bound to me and the Archives." 
> 
> Jude pouts and uses Tim's chest to push herself back upright. 
> 
> He cries out, and there is the first flicker of flame in the center of his ribs where her hand had been. 
> 
> "That doesn't seem fair to me, Archivist." 
> 
> Jon's heart is pounding, and the Eye is making it incredibly difficult to force the rest of the words out. "If I'm gone, there's nothing stopping him from burning down the Archives." 
> 
> Her eyebrows jump up towards her hairline, and the smile that takes over is wicked and delighted. "Oh. Interesting." 
> 
> "Do we have a deal?" 
> 
> Tim's cries are hoarse with smoke, and he claws at his exposed skin to put out the fire that isn't there. Instead, his fingers form shallow furrows like he's digging at soft wax. 
> 
> Jude holds out her hand. 
> 
> Jon starts to reach for it, then hesitates. "You can't interfere." 
> 
> "Oh come _on_ —"
> 
> "I thought you had no confidence in the Eye and its servants. You don't want to find out how right you are?" 
> 
> She rolls her eyes and wiggles her fingers. "Fine. I won't interfere. Tim is yours until you can no longer uphold your end of the bargain." 
> 
> "Deal," Jon says, and he reaches for her hand. 
> 
> They shake.
> 
> She smirks, and doesn't let go.

They agree to spend the night in the clearing where they left the horses. Sasha apologizes to Georgie, confirms that the woman is okay, then retreats to the far edge of the firelight to tend to her wounds. 

She doesn't apologize to Daisy, but Daisy doesn't seem interested in apologizing to her, either. There is an unspoken and unsteady truce, though, and that is enough.

As she had said: She was bound by Jon to protect the Archives. That much Sasha could read when she reached for the mark of the Hunt. 

The Stranger saw its opportunity to take over when her consciousness followed the tether created by the Eye. 

When Sasha closes her eyes and _looks_ , deep into herself, she can see the mark of the Hunt on her own soul as well, along with one that leaks water if she prods at it too much. It feels similar to the one that collects dirt and dust in Daisy. 

The things that tie them back to Jon now tie them to Sasha. 

What has the position of Head Archivist become? 

It turns out that Melanie and Georgie walked all the way to the lake, and instead of riding double on the way back, they all decide to walk. It is only a few hours by foot, and they make it back by midday. 

Melanie and Tim spend a good portion of the trip ribbing each other, and she even shows off her aim despite her blindness by punching him in the shoulder several times. Daisy and Basira walk quietly in the lead, and Sasha and Georgie bring up the rear of the group. 

They talk a little of spell craft, but Sasha's throat still hurts and has a hard time upholding her end of the conversation. 

Basira is the first to stop when they reach the edges of the Archive's lands. Two paces behind, Daisy settles her hand onto the pommel of her sword. Tim halts dead in his tracks, eyes wide with fear at what he sees. 

"You're not welcome here," Daisy says, her soft voice wrapped in that wire of the Hunt. "The Archivist made that clear." 

"I thought," a woman says, and Sasha watches Tim flinch back as if struck, "that the Head Archivist was missing." 

When Sasha pushes her way to the front of the group, her eyes land on a short woman with close-cropped hair and a clever smirk. "I am the replacement Archivist until his return," she says, and holds the woman's gaze steady. She notices that the woman stands on the edge of the golden haze protecting the Archives. "What do you want?" 

"Ohh…" This seems to amuse her greatly, and she spreads her arms wide in a welcoming gesture. "The Archivist's effigy. I wonder if you'll burn just as nicely…" 

"You'll leave her out of this, Jude," Tim snaps, finally breaking out of his fear and placing himself between Sasha and the stranger. "Your agreement was with Jon." 

"I know, and since he's gone, I've come to collect." Jude looks over her shoulder and frowns at the building. "Shame I couldn't actually enjoy the full fruits of my victory, but, you know… Win some, lose some." She gives Tim a vague sort of shooing gesture. "I'll even be nice enough to let you say goodbye." 

"What?" Sasha gives a short laugh in shock. She looks to the others for some sort of explanation, but they all avoid her gaze. "You can't be serious, he's not going anywhere. We need him here. I—" She stops, uncertain of the feeling that is buried deep down after three years. "I need him here," she finally says, and Tim gives her a pained look. 

Jude's laugh is a short, sharp burst of sound before it catches and she practically doubles over with the force of it. "Oh this is _her_! The woman you're in love with that got taken by the Stranger." 

"Stop it—" Tim tries, but Jude keeps on going in a fit of glee. 

She takes a few taunting steps forward, and Sasha watches the grass beneath her feet wither and burn from a sudden heat. "Did you know that the thing inside of you killed his brother? And then you went and let it take you—" 

"I said stop it!" Tim shouts and the flames erupt at his feet. He starts to reach for his sword, but the effort of forcing his hand back to his side only makes the flames burn higher and brighter — up to his thighs, his waist, curling around his hips and arms as he shakes. 

Sasha stumbles back in surprise, and Basira steadies her. Suddenly, the heat makes sense — the anger burning beneath his skin this entire time. The tether that smoldered to the touch. 

And this is what Jon had locked away, the same way he had locked the thing inside of her.

"Now you see," Jude demures, reaching up and stroking one finger down Tim's cheek. "What a little mess you've caused, Effigy." 

He closes his eyes and the flames take to his coat and his hair, but he doesn't seem to notice. "Leave her out of this. I'll go, Jude, just—" 

"What, and not gloat a little?" She saunters the long way around him until she's facing Sasha again, reveling in the flames that jump from his fire to her. "I want her to know how much heartbreak she's caused you." 

Sasha licks her lips and struggles to get a breath of air despite the acrid smoke forming thick around them. The grass has started to smolder as well, and soon it will spread. 

Daisy's growl is low with warning and she approaches Jude with her blade bare and painted orange with the reflection of the flames. 

"No," Sasha says, surprising herself as much as everyone else as she grabs Daisy's wrist. "You can't—" 

Her eyes flash yellow, but she pauses at Sasha's touch. She strains against the limits of their bond, but more out of caution than a desire to break it. "I told you: Any monster that threatens the Archives. I will not let this one go a second time." 

Sasha shakes her head, tries to speak, and breaks into a coughing fit. "Get the others back a safe distance," she rasps. "She can't cross the ward." 

"But—" 

"Daisy, I will let you kill us if it comes to that, but make sure the others are safe." Sasha turns to Jude and waits until she's certain that Daisy is following her orders before speaking again. "What was the exact nature of your agreement with Jon?" 

Jude seems mildly disappointed. "For as long as Jon is Head Archivist, Tim is bound to him and the Archives. And that I'm not allowed to interfere, but he never said anything about a little goading to a perfectly volatile weapon." She winks. 

"Good news for us, then, as Jon is still Head Archivist." Sasha hopes she sounds confident about that assumption, because she's not too sure what his current state is. "And in Jon's absence, I will fill in on that agreement." 

"Sasha, _no_ —" Tim starts, but Jude holds up a finger to silence him. 

Her eyes narrow and she regards Sasha with a new interest. "You're aware that he's like this because of _you_ , aren't you?" 

Sasha looks to Tim, her heart pounding in her chest with a mixture of smoke inhalation and the sorrow at his pleading expression. "I am aware of the part I've played," she says softly, barely able to hear herself over the crackling flames. "The Stranger let me know exactly what it did to his brother, and promises to do the same to me." 

He lets out a pained moan as he sinks slowly to his knees. 

"And you think he'll accept you like that?" Jude gets close, dangerously close, teeth bared in a ferocious grin. “With these ugly pieces of each of you, out there in the open for both to see?” 

"I do.” 

Jude hums in thought and rocks back on her heels, allowing the space between them once more. "Alright." 

"Alright," Sasha gasps in relief, and holds out her hand for a shake. 

Somehow, Jude looks even more delighted by this. "Oh, no," she says with a laugh. "My deal was with the Archivist. Yours, little Effigy, is with _him_." She nods at Tim. 

For a moment, Sasha hesitates. She can feel the heat emanating from him, and he doesn't seem to be in any condition to keep it under control. 

She looks for Daisy, and finds her standing a safe distance away, sword drawn. Waiting. 

There is more than just her own life at stake here, but it's a risk that she's willing to take. 

Sasha pushes past Jude and goes to kneel in front of Tim. 

"Don't—" He tries to pull his head back as she reaches for him, but she presses her palms to his cheeks and holds them there despite the pain. "Sasha, it's not worth it." 

"You are. To me, you are." She rests her forehead against his and lets her eyes slip shut against the blistering heat. "Come back to me, Tim." 

His voice breaks on a sob, and he leans into her touch. "I can't. I don't want to hurt you." 

"You won't," she says, and his cheek beneath her lips is like flash paper. She moves her hand to his chest, and her fingers are silhouetted against the ember glowing between his ribs. 

Tim rests his head on her shoulder, bending low beneath an unseen weight. He takes her hand in his own, and she can feel the first stirring of the tether that loops through her to the Eye. He gives a shuddering breath, and the flames begin to dim. 

Sasha's sigh ruffles the hair over his ear. "Come back to me," she repeats, and again and again, all the emotions she tucked away finally coming back into the light. She pours them in through the tether as reminders, promises, desires. 

It hurts, more than she thought it would, but she doesn't let go. 

Slowly, the fire extinguishes itself, leaving them kneeling in a charred patch of grass. Slowly, Tim lifts his head and looks at Sasha with soot-stained awe. 

She tries to brush it away with her thumb, but it only smudges across his cheekbone. She wants to laugh, but all that comes out is a smoky cough. 

"Jude's gone," he observes, voice only marginally stronger, but it's thick with tears. 

"You're still here," she observes in turn, running her fingers through his hair and sending up a cloud of ash.

"I'm still here," he says with a faint laugh. "I'm still here." And then he passes out.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Prelude-**  
>  Sasha loses track of how much time she spends like that — laying on her side, the tips of her fingers tracing Tim's profile in the thin morning sun. His eyes are closed, but she knows he's awake. His hand does a lazy exploration of her shoulders and spine, mapping out the muscles and the bones in a soft, indulgent way. 
> 
> "Do you want to hear a secret?" he says suddenly, voice muffled in the silence. He cracks open one eye to look at her, the corners of it crinkling in a smile as she runs her thumb over his cheek and back through his disheveled hair. "Something I've never told anyone?" 
> 
> "Of course I do," she says, using her grip on the back of his head to anchor herself as she wriggles closer. "I want to know _everything_." About him, to start. About everything, in a grand scheme. 
> 
> He tells her. 
> 
> Sasha blinks, stunned. She pushes herself up, one hand on his chest, the other digging a valley into the pillow next to his head. "Really?" 
> 
> "Yeah," he says with a laugh. "I wouldn't lie to you. Especially not about that. You'd figure me out in a heartbeat if I tried." 
> 
> "Really really?" she asks, leaning down so that her nose is right above his and she can taste his laughter on her lips. 
> 
> "Really really," he confirms, his fingers tangling in her hair. He breathes her in, heartbeat steady beneath her palm, his body warm and comfortable next to hers. He repeats the secret, mumbles it against her jaw, the lines of her neck, into her hair, and she kisses him before she can even think to say it back. 

Daisy carries Tim to his room, and Georgie bandages up the burns on Sasha’s hands and face. 

There is a pinched and drawn quality to her expression, like she wants to say something but doesn’t trust herself to do so. 

“You can, you know,” Sasha says. She doesn’t want to push, or to lean too hard on her connection to the Eye to learn something about this woman she barely knows. “Say whatever is on your mind.” 

Georgie sighs as she ties off the final bandage around Sasha’s hand. Her own hands fall still in her lap, but she doesn’t leave. “It’s just…” And then she laughs and fusses with her topknot and shakes her head. “I haven’t seen Jon in person in years. Not since before he took the job as Head Archivist. But we spoke often, and he told me about everything that happened.” 

There’s a fondness to her expression that strikes Sasha as incredibly tender. This is a person who had a whole life and connection to Jon before he became the Head Archivist, and cared for him deeply. 

“You aren’t exactly like him, but your love for your team… That is very much like him.” When she turns that smile to Sasha, it’s sad and weary. “Please, take the time to rest. We are here to support you. I hope you understand that before it’s too late.” 

“Unlike Jon?” 

“Oh, very much unlike Jon.” Finally, Georgie rises to her feet and stretches her arms over her head. “Now, I’m going to go find my girlfriend, and make sure she’s doing okay.” 

Sasha watches her go before calling out, “Georgie?” 

“Hm?” The woman pauses at the doorway and glances back. 

“I’m not going to ask, because I understand I was the catalyst for… whatever happened to Melanie. But if there’s anything I can do, please let me know.” 

She gives Sasha that sad and weary smile again. “Thank you. We will.” 

Sasha waits until she’s gone before flopping back onto her bed. She spends a few minutes tossing and turning, unable to get comfortable, before rolling to her feet and making up her mind. 

She doesn’t bother with her shoes and slips down the hall on bare feet. She doesn’t sneak, because she’s a grown woman who can do what she wants, but she moves quietly out of habit. 

When she reaches Tim’s door, she hesitates. It’s silent on the other side, but she can sense him within. 

She knocks. 

There’s a beat before he says, “Go away.” 

“Tim, it’s me.” She presses her forehead against the door despite the blisters on her skin. “I want to talk.” 

The pause drags out before he gives a resigned sigh. “Come in, then.” 

The blinds are drawn over his window, and she has to blink a few times to adjust to the darkness. But she can make out the shape of him sitting up in his bed, face turned away. 

Sasha closes the door behind her. She tries to figure out just what exactly she wants to say, going through all of the apologies or demands or questions from the last three years. 

But by the time she reaches his bed, none of them seem important enough any more. 

She climbs on and settles beside him on the mattress. It’s not a terribly big bed, but there’s enough space for them to sit with their shoulders-elbows-hips-knees touching. She studies the lines of his profile that are barely visible to her in the dim light. 

She doesn’t say anything. And he doesn’t push her. 

The memory of familiarity is comfortable, and Sasha can feel herself start to nod off. It’s fine like this, she thinks. They won’t be able to go back to how it used to be, but moments like these are a start. 

_Everything unspoken and festering,_ the thing sneers and she jerks back upright with a gasp. _That’s perfectly fine._

Tim doesn’t look, but she can feel his knuckles brush against the back of her hand — a question, a hope, and she lets him twine their fingers together in a loose grip. 

He inhales, and his breath catches on the emotions still bottled up inside. It takes him a long time before he can speak. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.” His voice is as soft as ash, and just as fragile. “I didn’t know how.” 

“I understand.” Sasha shifts their hands so that her palm is flush against his, and his grip on her tightens. “You know that. More than anyone I understand.”

His laugh is more of a movement than a sound, but he finally turns to look at her. In the darkness of the room, she can see embers dancing in his eyes, and she wonders how she could have missed it — how she hadn’t looked at him close enough since returning to see what had changed. “What a pair we make, huh?” 

She opens her mouth to return with a quip, to try and get him to laugh, but the only thing she says is, “Why didn’t you follow me?” 

His expression twists with guilt before falling altogether. He closes his eyes and turns his head away so he can’t see her. “I wanted to,” he says. “Fuck, Sasha, I really wanted to.” His grip tightens on her hand and she bites back the hiss of pain from the burns. Still, he must sense it, or she’s not as quiet as she hoped she was, and he immediately pulls his hand away. “I’m sorry.” 

“Don’t—” She reaches for him, catching onto his wrist in one hand and pressing her fingers to his cheek with the other. His skin is warm to the touch, but it’s a heat that she remembers. There’s the hint of stubble along his jaw, and she spends a moment relearning the familiar shape of it before tilting his face back towards her. “Please, don’t look away from me.” 

Tim moves willingly with her touch, and this too is familiar. This closeness, the way he feels beneath her hands. The tension is new, and she fears that at any second, something will break and the distance will return. 

But he stays within her reach, even when she lets her hands drop away, and that is enough. 

“I would like to know,” she says into the space between them. “I don’t want to ask, because I’m afraid. The Eye—” 

“It’s okay. You can. I don’t…” He heaves a sigh and shifts to once again take her hand in his. “It will be easier, if you ask. I’ve heard the difference between when Jon takes statements or when Martin or I would try. I don’t want to have to think about it.” 

"Alright." She takes a breath and settles in more comfortably against him, tucking her head against his shoulder and pulling his hand into her lap. "Timothy Stoker, tell me about how the Desolation made its mark on you." 

She can feel his shuddering inhale, but then his arm curls around her and he begins to speak.

"There was this woman I used to know. She was… _incredible_ , beautiful as a sunrise and so passionate about everything she loved. Intelligent and funny and soft, and I was _so_ taken with her. When a new spot for an Archival assistant position opened, I thought _what the fuck_ , why not, and made the transfer." 

This, she knows. This, he's told her — whispered into her skin with no space between them, against her lips and she drank it down like a sweet wine. The secret he never told anyone but her, that he loved her. 

But Jude knew. She used that emotion against him. 

"Believe it or not, she got passed over a promotion for a job she devoted herself to. I saw what that did to her, the way she questioned herself and her skills, tried to figure out who she was if she wasn't good enough for the job that ignored her. And this is perhaps where I made the first mistake: Not trying to talk to her about it. I thought I would just be a silent support, offer a hand if she ever wanted to _do_ something about it, but we never actually talked about what had happened…" 

Sasha puts her hand to his chest and looks up. "Tim, I don't want to hear a story about me." 

"So much of what burns inside of me is because of you," he says, covering her hand, and she can feel the fire beneath the skin. It feels more like a confession than an accusation. 

The thing inside of her twists uncomfortably from the heat, but doesn't speak. 

"When the Stranger came for you, when I saw it wearing your body?" His eyes squeeze shut and his face twists in pain at the memory. 

She doesn't know how to help, or if she even can. 

"All I could remember was what it did to my brother, but that had been so quick. He was there, and then he wasn’t. Or perhaps it was that I never actually got to see what it did to Danny. If it paraded around in his skin the way it did in yours." 

She remembers how she had screamed, but how no one heard her. All they heard were the howls of the thing pretending to be her, but perhaps, in the end, there wasn't much difference in their anguish. 

"I thought _it's going to kill her, and I'm going to have to watch_. I couldn't do anything, I was so _helpless_ , and it didn't matter how much I loved you, I was useless. And then Jon came, and he stopped it. It sounds so easy when I say it like that. _And then Jon came. He stopped it._ " Tim lifts a hand to rake it through his hair, sending it into disheveled waves. "That was the first time I ever actually saw the Archivist use their power. I don't know what Gertrude had been capable of. All I saw was Jon, able to quell the Stranger and lock it away." 

He looks down at her, and when his hand drops from his hair, he lets the tips of his fingers graze her cheek before returning to her lap. "And then he sent you away." 

"And you promised me you would follow." 

"I tried. And each time I tried, Jon or the Watcher would have something that required my attention. Again and again — when the mere thought of it or you crossed my mind, there one of them would be. Distracting me. Maybe they thought they were doing me a favor by keeping me busy, but it didn't work. I just got more and more frustrated with _everything_. That's how I met Jude Perry. Another one of the ridiculous tasks from the Archivist, researching something the Watcher had seen." He laughs, a cruel bark of sound, and the rueful grin he gives sends a shiver down Sasha's spine. "Maybe he saw what would happen to me, and wanted to see if he was correct." 

Tim fusses with the bandages on Sasha's hand, and she lets him. They are healing faster than she thought they would, but perhaps that is the Eye's work. Unwilling to let her go before she finishes proving herself useful. 

"She saw that anger born of hopelessness, the weakness I felt at seeing Danny disappear, and you being taken from—… Not even from _me_ , I won't be that selfish. From the Archives, from everything you worked for, and how I felt at not being there to give you the support you needed. I ached for what you lost." 

Sasha can feel the flames inside of him, but he keeps them contained. The burns on her hands, the scars that will linger, mark her for the Desolation, and they can sense the turmoil inside of him. "She offered you strength." 

"She offered me something to control, to wield. The fucking ironic thing, though, is that I couldn't. She gave me the power and it nearly consumed me." He laughs again, but this time it is tired and resigned. " _And then Jon came._ " 

"Do you hate him? For taking that power away from you?" 

Tim thinks about it, letting his fingers trail up and down the length of her palm. "I don't think so. But I couldn't be around him. Or maybe it was that I couldn't be around this place, because it reminded me too much of what I failed to protect — and it reminded me of what I could easily destroy." 

She watches the path his finger takes, at the sigils he starts to trace. She remembers teaching him those symbols, useless without the proper triggers to set them off. How she would draw them into his shoulder blades when he slept with his back to her, or across the planes of his chest whenever he smiled down at her. She'd say their name as she drew them, and laugh as he tried to repeat them. 

"I haven't stopped, you know," he says suddenly, not looking at her. "Jude was right about that." 

Sasha holds her breath, waiting for him to clarify. 

"I saw the way you reacted to her words. About how I still love you." Tim chances the briefest look at her before immediately turning away, and her heart gives a terrified, giddy flip. "I didn't follow you because I was too much of a damned coward, and I couldn't face you after failing you so many times. But I haven't stopped." 

She can feel the tension ease, like the room held its breath until he had finished. 

Sasha lifts her hands, then hesitates, letting them hover just over his cheeks. "Do you want to hear a secret?" she whispers, her voice barely audible over the pounding of her heart. "Something I've never told anyone?"

Tim's eyes, when they finally meet hers, are hopeful, but guarded. But he nods and says, "Of course I do." 

She tells him.

He kisses her like a wildfire catching. He kisses her like her lips are salvation. He kisses her like a man in love, starved, finally home. 

And when he tugs her into his lap, she goes willingly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (no interlude just [otp playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3A1Q1THmSurdUCH4HjHuAi?si=5-uzPVAyRxqpXF542GzpzA))


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Prelude-**  
>  Basira doesn't fidget beneath his gaze. She remains seated, calmly returning it, face impassive. 
> 
> Jon doesn't realize how much he has missed being regarded without fear or trepidation or anger until that moment. He takes a breath and considers his next words carefully, unwilling to force her to tell him what she doesn't want to. He doesn't want her to be the next to flinch. 
> 
> "You've worked here for almost three years," he says, and she nods. "You're only just coming to me now with this suspicion?" 
> 
> "There are so many other things at play here," Basira replies. "I have not been in a place so heavily observed by the Eye, that it was honestly disorienting in and of itself until I realized that _that_ was part of the problem." 
> 
> He leans back in his chair and runs a hand over his face, exhausted. "The Watcher doesn't seem too worried about your presence here. You're certain he's aware you're one of the…" Jon makes a vague gesture in her direction. 
> 
> She lifts an eyebrow. "One of the what, Jon?" 
> 
> He doesn't want to say it. There's a danger in being known and named, and he doesn't want to put that weight behind Basira's presence. Not when he feels like she is the only person still on his side — Sasha's betrayal, Tim's self-destruction, Martin's withdrawal, Daisy's volatility. How many of them are because of what he's done, or more importantly, _hasn't_ done? 
> 
> She waits, patiently, for him to answer. 
> 
> Jon forces himself to speak. "One of the Order of the Divine Host. One of the Blind." 
> 
> "I am," she confirms simply. 
> 
> _Why are you really in my Archives?_ he wants to ask, but he doesn't. 
> 
> Instead, Basira continues without his prompting, and he wonders if she still feels compelled to give the details. "Despite what you might think of us, whatever you have learned from these books or heard from your Watcher, we are not so inclined as to destroy the sun, or send the world into a never-ending night." She hesitates, clearly debating what information she wants to give him. "There is a difference between all-knowing, and knowing enough." 
> 
> He surprises himself by laughing. "I'm well aware." 
> 
> She has the decency to wince at that. "On a grand scale, especially. There are things that seek to know and order the world to their whims, and we are the ones who wish to keep those futures… in the dark, so to speak." 
> 
> Jon considers this. In this head, the Eye yells at him in warning. The fear seeps into his own limbs, and this, too, he considers. "It's my job to know and understand," he begins slowly. "More than that, it is what I want to do, even if given a choice." 
> 
> "I'm not giving you a choice, I'm stating the facts as I know them—" 
> 
> "I understand that, but if you think that I'll just _stop_ because some people think I should… I'm sorry to say that it's not possible." He pauses, and studies the wood grain of his desk, the whorls that almost look like eyes if one has more of a fanciful imagination. "I am, at this point, I think, quite unable to stop." 
> 
> Basira exhales through her nose, but still manages to keep her expression under control. "Do not think that the Blind are the only ones who are working against you, Archivist." 
> 
> "I think far too highly of myself to believe that only one group would be afraid," he says with words that aren't his own and the taste of iron in his mouth. "And you, Basira? Where do you fall on that scale?" 
> 
> She tries to resist. He can see it in the lines of her jaw, in the pulse of anger in the tether that binds her to the Eye, faint as it is. "I don't think you want this," she says, and he wonders what she would have called him if she had been weaker. 
> 
> Jon, or Archivist? 
> 
> He wonders where the line between them even is. 

Sasha wakes up first, with the sun at her back and Tim's arm slung over her waist. She frees one arm from between them and traces the slope of his nose. The uneven bump from a break that didn't heal correctly. Freckles and scars, both new and familiar. 

She can feel him slowly come to wake beneath her hand. He tilts his head to press a tired, off-center kiss to her bandaged wrist, then gazes up at her with sleep-bleary eyes and a lazy smile. "Good morning," she says, and he gives a content sigh. 

"I've missed this," he murmurs. "I've missed you." 

Her fingers continue their study, discovering the changes she couldn't see in the dark before. "What did you mean by 'as beautiful as a sunrise'? I don't think I've known you to ever be awake that early." 

Tim's laugh is accompanied by an embarrassed groan. He flops over onto his back, rubbing his hand over his face. "Heavens, Sasha, don't make me explain myself now." 

She follows after, grinning. "I want to know!" 

"Of course you do, you want to know _everything_ ," he teases. 

"I'll keep it a secret." 

He drapes his arm over his eyes. "It's so corny to explain it now." 

Even though he can't see it, she pouts. 

"Fine!" he concedes eventually. His arm lifts enough for one eye to glare up at her, and he sports a pout of his own. "I mean that when you're the first thing I see in the morning, you're this brilliant golden glow that I just want to bask in. Or something." 

She can feel herself flush all over, and he reaches up to let his fingers tangle in her mess of hair. "Oh," she says, for lack of anything more coherent. 

"I told you it was stupid." He applies the slightest bit of pressure to the back of her head, and she bends beneath his touch with ease. 

"It's not," she says, laughing, before she kisses him. "It's really not."

She had meant to get up to go do work, but his is an easy rhythm to fall into, and eventually she forgets what she even meant to do beyond this moment. 

When she wakes up a second time, Tim is gone and there is a haphazardly folded paper on the pillow beside her. She flops over onto her stomach and flips it open. 

_Got called to do some work with Daisy. I'll see you for lunch._  
_\- Tim_  
_(As in we'll have lunch together like old times but honestly, I'm not complaining about the implication of having you for lunch)_

She fails at stifling her laugh, reveling in how light she feels at that moment. She knows that this is not everything going back to normal. There is still a monster inside of her that wants out, and an inferno inside of Tim that wants to destroy. The Archivist is missing, and she carries marks that were never meant for her. 

But at least she can have this. 

Sasha folds the paper back up and searches for a pen. 

_Find me in the Archives, I'll decide then. - S_

She leaves it on his pillow and goes to wash up. 

She could go back to her room to clean up properly, but she doesn't want to lose any more time. So she pulls her skirts back on, uses one of Tim's shirts, and makes her way to the Archives while braiding her hair. 

The stacks are bathed in bright light from the high windows, heavy with a mid-morning silence that welcomes her in. 

A pleased sigh escapes her lips as she walks through them. Last time, she was still a barely remembered variable. But now she is more Archivist than two days ago, and the Archives recognize her as their own. 

They will never be hers, like they had once been, but she can feel at peace here once again. The jagged lines of the past have been smoothed over, forgiven. 

She wants to return Jon to this place as much as it wants him back. 

Sasha collects several sheets of paper and a pen, then begins to make a list of what she knows. She has to lean into the connection with the Eye, despite the way it makes the thing inside of her squirm in anticipation. 

"You're not going to get another chance," she tells it. 

_Seeing the future has never been your strong suit,_ it mocks. 

She has no comeback to that. 

The list is an incredibly short one, because even with the Eye's assistance, she still doesn't know much. The connection to the others is important — the marks that they share with Jon, as much as they rely on his presence. 

One way or another, he's saved each of them, that much she is certain of. Which implies that she still has to figure out Basira, and even Melanie. They both bear evidence of the Eye, though in different ways. 

Her pen pauses as she thinks about Melanie — who left the Archives of her own accord. Sasha wonders if she could find any remaining tether between her and this place, or if there had been a re-acclimation process for her. 

Did she hesitate before crossing the barrier, the same way Sasha did? Did she trace her paths through these halls to try and remember what they meant to her? 

Did she leave because she wanted to, or because she was forced to? 

Sasha realizes that she's been doodling while lost in thought, and when she looks, she finds the paper (list and all) covered in dozens of eyes. 

"Hard at work I see, Miss James." 

Sasha jumps, the pen flying from her already weak grasp. "Watcher," she gasps, forcing out a shaky laugh as she shuffles loose papers over her ruined page. "I rarely see you out of your office." 

Elias offers a benign smile and gestures to one of the chairs at her table. 

She hesitates, then nods. 

He takes a seat with a soft huff of breath and looks at the shelves surrounding them. "I wanted to talk with you, Watcher to… _temporary_ Archivist." Again, that smile. "I see that you're making yourself right back at home." 

"I… I suppose?" 

"Are your hands alright? I heard about what happened with Miss Perry." He gives a mournful shake of his head, and Sasha half expects him to say 'such a shame'. "I'm glad to see that you have Tim back under control." 

Sasha immediately goes red, then cold dread fills her chest. "I'm not certain I know what you're talking about," she says, suddenly very aware of the way Tim's shirt fits on her frame. "He is perfectly in control of himself." 

Elias turns up his hands in a placating gesture and pretends not to notice as Sasha adjusts the collar of the shirt to hide marks that aren't even there. "It's been a long three years." It's neither an agreement nor a statement to the contrary, but Sasha knows that he's not saying it to be nice to either herself or Tim. 

"I'm certain you're busy, Watcher, and I don't wish to keep you with idle conversation." Sasha forces her hands to keep still on the table, unwilling to fidget in his presence. "What can I help you with?" 

"Oh, I just wanted to check on your progress. See how the search for my Archivist is going." 

She looks at the corner of the paper, covered in eyes, the list more questions than answers. "I would think you knew better than I do." 

He waves a hand airily. "I can only see that he will be returned to me, but the details, Miss James, are the job of the Head Archivist." His smile feels like a knife between her ribs, a reminder of what she was unable to achieve and is still only borrowing through his assistance. 

She doesn't know how to respond. She doesn't know what she expected. 

It all feels wrong, but it has felt like this for so long that she never noticed until she came back to this place. 

There's a footstep from several rows over, and Elias' gaze swivels away. "Basira," he says cheerfully. "Come join us." 

Basira doesn't quite sulk out of the stacks, but she certainly doesn't look happy at being called over. "Elias," she says by way of greeting. "Surprised to see you out of your office." 

"Yes, well, I wanted to see how Miss James was getting on in her search for our missing Archivist. So far it seems she's just made herself a more competent replacement." His tone implies that he's teasing, but the thing inside Sasha rages at his words. 

It takes every bit of energy she has to not get up and leave. Running away would be admitting something she doesn't want to face.

Still, Basira's presence helps relieve the pressure of Elias' attention. Sasha reaches out with her senses, and lets that calm wash over her. 

"We have our theories." Basira puts her hand on the back of Sasha's chair. “But it has barely been three days." 

"Since Miss James has arrived, but longer since Jonathan has been missing." 

There is a moment where the two of them stare at each other. Elias' smile widens slightly, the expression shifting into thinly veiled amusement as the seconds drag on. 

Finally, there is a grunt of frustration from Basira. "It would go faster if you didn't seek to interrupt us." 

Elias holds up his hands to defer to her. "Of course, my apologies. Like I said, I was just checking on Miss James, especially after Tim's breakdown just outside the Archives."

Sasha goes cold again. "As you can see, I am fine." 

"Indeed," he says, not sounding entirely convinced. "Well, I'll leave you two to it then." 

"Much obliged," Basira intones dryly and Elias gives her a thin smile before leaving. 

Sasha remains frozen for several painful seconds until she finally moves to once again adjust the collar of the shirt. 

Basira moves to sit in the recently vacated chair and does not comment. "I had hoped to catch you before he did." 

A high, strained laugh works its way out of Sasha's mouth. "I appreciate the sentiment."

"I actually wanted to speak to you about something, if you have the time." 

Sasha looks at her in surprise, then pushes aside the papers. "I can use all the assistance I can get, if that is what you mean." 

Basira shrugs. "Sort of. It does have to do with a suspicion I brought to Jon a few months ago. And… a concern I have, regarding what has happened to you." 

"How so?" 

"My order, the Divine Host — the Blind, as you call us." Basira touches a hand to her breastbone, and Sasha wonders if she wears a pendant beneath her brocade robes. Then she reaches out and pulls the paper covered in eyes from the disorderly stack. With the charcoal stick from the pouch at her side, Basira begins to steadily and patiently blind every single one of them. "The legend is that we once captured a powerful entity that wanted to command the world." 

Sasha watches as the eyes become awash with X's and jagged lines. It feels like a spell in its own way, and so she lets it happen without interruption. 

"That entity was once a man named Jonah Magnus, who began to see the future, and sought to control it." Basira sets aside the stick and, just as methodically, she begins to tear the page. "I think you recognize that name." 

"Jonah Magnus, the founder of the Institute," Sasha says despite how dry her mouth feels.

She nods. She sets aside two halves of an eye and begins on the next. "Given enough Watchers under his control, he sought to spread the power of the Eye and not only see the future, but arrange it to his whims." 

"That obviously hasn't happened." It feels more like a question, begging for confirmation.

"Not yet." 

"You have some reason to think that it will?" 

Basira sets aside another jagged half of an eye. "I think it is in the process of happening, and that Elias needs Jon for that." 

Sasha reaches out and covers Basira's hand with her own, pulling it away from the paper. "Speak clearly," she says, and she swallows back the taste of iron. "I do not have time for vaguery." 

"Magnus has escaped from our captivity. Likely a weakening of any restraints and wards we had after all that time. The Order has sent members to Archives across the country in order to see if they can find any trace of where he has gone." 

"And you think he is here?" Sasha asks, looking down at the mangled paper between them. 

"I think that he is here." Basira crumbles the paper in one hand before offering it to Sasha. "I tried to bring my concerns to Jon, but I think he was too far gone by that point." 

She takes the paper ball and focuses on it. It is a mass of strings, jumbled together. A few of them float off, severed by Basira's destruction. But the rest tangle into a cord that ties back to the Eye. Sasha listens, and the pieces inside of her clamor against the scrutiny. 

The Eye remains silent, watching her back. 

"Do you believe Jon to be Jonah Magnus?" she asks, trying to decide if she finds it ridiculous or not. "Jon. Jonah. You don't think that's a little too on the nose?" She had never seen Gertrude wield the level of power he had in that one moment against the Stranger. 

She had never seen Gertrude do what she has done in the last two days. 

"Not Jon, no." 

"What, _Elias_?" Even as she says it, though, it doesn't seem too much of a stretch.

Basira shrugs. "It is only a theory. And I think that the Eye had its grip too far into Jon for him to be of any assistance. It aligns with what Georgie said, about the ritual in the lake." 

"And you think that I am the better choice." It's not a question. It doesn't have to be. Elias does not want her to be the Archivist, despite the fact that she seems to be rapidly following in Jon's footsteps.

"I think you understand better than most what is at stake here." Basira rises to her feet and points at the crumbled paper. "I just ask that you consider it before your next move to recover the Archivist." 

"I thought you wanted me to find him," Sasha says as Basira turns to leave. 

She pauses, then slowly turns back to face Sasha. "You know as well as I do that there is a line between them," she says softly, almost in a confidential whisper. "I want you to find Jon, but I do not care what happens to the Archivist." 

Sasha thinks about it as she listens to Basira's retreating footsteps. 

She holds the paper in her palm, and tugs the strings together. One by one, she feeds them into the mark of the Desolation, and eventually, the paper turns to ash. 


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Prelude-**  
>  The arrow sits on the table between them like a reminder. 
> 
> Melanie inhales, and Jon pretends not to notice the way she trembles all over. "Are you certain?" 
> 
> "As I can be," he says softly. 
> 
> "And if you're not?" 
> 
> The Eye provides several answers with ease, but common sense stills his tongue. 
> 
> He tries for a joke instead. "Well, then you won't be able to find me easily enough to get your revenge." It falls flat on his ears, but Melanie snorts anyway. 
> 
> "You're not a funny person, Jon," she says, unnecessarily. 
> 
> "Yes, I'm aware." 
> 
> She starts to reach for the shaft, but hesitates, and withdraws back to her chair. "I'll be completely free of the Archives." 
> 
> "Yes."
> 
> "And it won't be like Tim? I won't be tied to this place, compelled to come back?" 
> 
> He shakes his head. "You'll never have to come back." 
> 
> This time, Melanie finally does reach for the arrow. It's one of the ones she made herself. Jon recognizes the fletching, remembers the way she had the feathers from it stuck in her hair and instead of telling her, everyone spent the day trying not to laugh. 
> 
> She turns it around in her fingers, the motions deft and practiced. "What about that other woman? What was her name… Sasha?" 
> 
> Jon's hands clench into fists in his lap and his breath catches in his throat, but Melanie doesn't seem to notice. "What about her?" 
> 
> "It's been three years and she hasn't been back." Melanie's eyes dance up to his, sharp and cruel with the remains of what used to mark her. "Unless she's actually dead and _that's_ why you bound Tim, so he wouldn't find out." 
> 
> He feels sick at the implication, because even when it was the Stranger wearing her skin, he couldn't bring himself to hurt her. "No, she's… Last I was able to tell, she's still alive. But she's…" He sighs and looks down at the papers on his table, the ink swirling together as his eyes refuse to focus. The thought of Sasha makes him want to check on her, to ensure that she's still okay after all of this, but he won't let it. 
> 
> The urge isn't his. It's the Eye, confirming its investment is secure. 
> 
> "She's what?" 
> 
> "She's not free of this place," he answers, unable to return Melanie's gaze. "She never will be free of this place." 
> 
> "But I will be?" 
> 
> "You will be." 
> 
> "To the best of your knowledge." 
> 
> He nods, once. "To the best of my extensive and supernatural knowledge." 
> 
> Melanie snorts again. Then she rises to her feet and gives the arrow another expert spin between her fingers. "Well, nothing for it, then." 
> 
> Jon tastes bile and iron in his mouth, but he refuses to speak. He lets her leave before giving one shuddering breath and covering his face with his hands. 

Sasha spends the afternoon staring at the marks that are scrawled over the pieces of her. 

Jon carried similar ones, he must have. Because the Eye encourages her, to the point where there was a degree of disappointment when Basira left their conversation without offering. The charcoal was a clever trick — a temporary mark, one that could be wiped away without lingering. 

She traces the shape of the closed eye on her forehead, but it doesn't feel any different. The thing inside of her laughs at her attempt, and the Eye watches. Unconcerned. 

Perhaps, if she pushes back on the marks, she will find Jon at their source. 

_You remember what happened last time you followed where a tether went?_ the thing teases, and she can feel the water in her lungs and Daisy's hand at her throat. _You send yourself to look for him, there won't be a you to come back to._

"Thank you for the warning. How unusually thoughtful of you," she mumbles and closes her eyes with a sigh. 

"Oh, great, so you like to talk to yourself." 

Sasha whirls around to find Melanie leaning casually against one of the shelves. "How long have you been there?" 

"Long enough. You weren't doing much." She strides forward with confidence and stops just shy of her hip colliding with the corner of the table. "I've come to warn you." 

Sasha frowns. "I think I'm aware of all the troubles I will be facing—" 

"No, this isn't to protect you." Melanie slaps her hand down on the table, and something clacks beneath her palm. When she draws her hand back, there is a stone arrowhead tied to a leather cord resting there. "I'm warning you: Don't get Georgie involved in this." 

She looks from the arrowhead to Melanie in confusion. "Excuse me?" 

Melanie leans in over Sasha's shoulder. "Georgie has never been bound to the Eye, and I will not stand to have that happen to her." 

"You think her helping me save Jon will bind her to the Eye?" 

"She doesn't belong here. She's given too much of herself to that man — we all have. He's done shit all to deserve it." 

Sasha's mouth hangs open in shock for a second longer before she laughs. "I'm sorry, but I do _not_ want to get involved in your relationship drama." 

"It's not—" Melanie sputters, drawing away. Her features twist in anger and she looks ready to strike. "It's more than how I don't want my partner getting involved with her ex. I thought you of all people would understand." 

"Understand _what_? What do you think you know about me?" Sasha pushes herself to her feet, forcing Melanie to retreat a step. "Tell me, from one victim to another, just what do you think you know about what I have had to give up because of this place?" 

"Don't you dare!" Melanie regains her ground and shoves Sasha. "I _blinded_ myself to be free of this place, and I _still_ get dragged back in to deal with his shit!"

Sasha's stomach drops, and she goes cold. "What…?" The question escapes her on a huff of breath, and she looks from Melanie's scarred face to the arrowhead on the table. 

And then she remembers the piece of paper between Basira's fingers as she destroyed each eye. 

And she begins to understand. 

"You didn't have a choice," Melanie says, unable to notice the expression on Sasha's face. "You've always been bound to this place, your leash was just longer than others. But _I_ do. I can leave, and Georgie will follow me if I asked her to." Her next breath catches, and her face twists in an attempt to contain the emotions. "The moment that I think her safety is in jeopardy, we're leaving. Do you understand?" 

"You used that arrow," Sasha says, reaching for the item on the table. "You severed your connection to the Eye, and that's why I can't feel it." 

Melanie's lip curls, but it doesn't turn into a full-on snarl. "And I'll do the same damned thing to you." 

Fear clings to her, makes it hard to breathe, feeling like she's being held just beneath the surface of the water. It's not just her own fear — she can feel the Eye sinking its hooks deeper into her, as if that would make a difference. "You can't—" 

"Why, because you said so? Because then you won't be able to save the Archivist?" She scoffs. "Ask me first if I care." 

"The Eye is the only thing keeping me _me_ —" 

Melanie shrugs and says, "Then Daisy will deal with you, like she promised." 

The words hit Sasha like a physical blow, and she clings to the edge of the table to keep herself upright. The pieces of her shiver, threatening to break apart, and she struggles to breathe. Her focus narrows down to the arrowhead. 

Sasha drops back down into her chair, stunned. 

But she's back on her feet an instant later as the first breath of bone-chilling fog wafts through the Archives. 

Melanie's head swivels, and there is a brief flicker of something unreadable over her face. "That's not Martin, is it?" 

"No," she says, storing away the fact that Melanie is able to pinpoint the source of the mist so easily despite her severed connection. That will be something to explore later. "Can you get the others together for me? We need to leave—" 

"What—" 

Sasha sets the arrowhead into Melanie's hand and closes her fingers around it. Gently as she can, she starts to urge Melanie back into the stacks. "Not now. I'll explain soon, just—" 

A man with a full, bushy beard and a well-pressed suit rounds a row of shelves and pulls up short when he sees them. "Oh, there you are, ladies! I had heard an argument, but couldn't pinpoint its source." 

Sasha maneuvers herself to stand in front of Melanie, her hand still gripping the other's in a vise despite the protests of the burns. "We apologize if we disturbed you. We were just leaving." 

"Nonsense, no harm done. And I don't believe we've met, have we?" He holds out a hand to her. "I'm Peter Lukas, an old friend of your Watcher's." 

Melanie squeezes back on Sasha's hand in warning, but even without that, Sasha wouldn't have reached for his. 

"No, I believe not. Strange, as I've worked with the Watcher for many years and haven't seen you before."

His smile remains friendly enough even as he lets his hand drop. "I see. You must be Sasha, hm? Martin has told me some interesting stories about you." His tone is conversational enough, but the mention of Martin sends a warning bell off in her head. He pulls out the chair that had been occupied by Elias and Basira and sits down. 

For some reason, through her panic, a strained laugh bubbles out of her mouth. 

From behind her, Melanie gives her spine a sharp jab, and she tries to tug Sasha away. 

"Something funny, Sasha?" Lukas asks, tilting his head a degree to the side. 

"I was just wondering what sort of profound revelations you were going to impart to me," she says. "That space is reserved for them, apparently." 

He lifts his bushy brows, and the hint of a smile plays at the corners of his lips — as if she presented him with the beginnings of a game he is excited to learn. "Then you have anticipated my visit?" 

She doesn't answer. 

He sighs and leans back in the chair, clearly a man at leisure. "Elias seems quite certain that you're going to get back his Archivist." 

Sasha wishes that people would stop calling him that. The more they call him that, the more she wonders if there is even enough of Jon left to save. "I'm afraid I don't understand why Archival business would interest you, Sir." 

This amuses him. "Sir," he repeats with a laugh. "I like that." 

"I think a better question would be why are you still here," Melanie snaps, and mock surprise coats Lukas' expression. 

"Is that you, Melanie? Why, I was under the impression that you had left. Made quite a show of it and all." He mimes a thumb slashing across his eyes, and Sasha winces — glad that Melanie couldn't see the action. "Martin was quite distraught." 

"Where is Martin?" Sasha cuts in before either could continue. "I was hoping for his assistance in my task." The lie comes easily when she knows that he can't push her for the truth. 

Lukas gives an ambivalent sort of shrug and begins to toy with the scraps of paper left on the table. A few have scribbled notes, but nothing interesting or worthwhile. Sasha made sure to destroy any eye she accidentally doodled. "He's busy with a task for me. I'm sure he has the utmost confidence in your abilities." 

"I should still like to have his opinion on this—" 

"Why?" Her request obviously takes him by surprise and he regards her curiously. "What do you think he would be able to assist you with? He is not an incredibly helpful assistant, unless you needed a cup of tea…" 

Melanie gives another squeeze in warning. "And yet you seem insistent upon relying on him anyway." 

"I always support family, and it seems that Elias is struggling with more mundane tasks of the Archives without a competent Head Archivist around, so I have stepped in to fulfil some of those duties." He begins to fold one of the pieces of paper, pressing his nail to the crease, then unfolds it and does it again in another shape. 

"Hold on," Melanie says with a forced laugh. "You _what_?" 

"Helping with administration?" Lukas asks without looking up. 

"No, the part about _supporting family_." 

"Oh," Lukas says, and as much as he tries to play it off as indifferent, there is an overwhelming smugness to his tone. "Yes, that. Martin. Some convoluted family branch, or root, et cetera. And seeing as I have no children of my own, I figured why not make Martin the inheritor of my estate."

Sasha can feel Melanie tense, but there's no further reaction. There is also far too much to unpack from his statement that she does not feel qualified for, especially without speaking to Martin about it. But the fog and his distance suddenly makes more sense. "Then if you have nothing to say to me, I'll take my leave." 

He does look up this time. "I apologize, I didn't realize I was taking up so much of your time. Then my request is simple: Don't go find the Archivist." 

She freezes in place, eyes widening a fraction. "Why?" 

"He interferes with my plans." His fingers make a few more deft folds before he holds aloft the paper. It doesn't look like anything in particular, and instead of seeming content with his result, Lukas just frowns at it. "Actually, catching the two of you here is a stroke of luck." 

" _Why_?" Melanie repeats for the both of them when Sasha can't find the words to speak. "You have got to be so far up your own—Ow!" 

Sasha pinches Melanie’s hand to get her to stop. "Please speak plainly. Because you _are_ taking up my time." 

He turns his gaze on her, his eyes a thin and icy blue in a ghost-pale face. They remind her of the lake shore she stood on with Martin, and a shiver goes down her spine. "I am willing to make you an offer, Sasha. One that the Eye, the Archivist, and the Watcher are not willing to extend to you: Refrain from finding Jonathan Sims, and I will release you from your servitude to the Institute."


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Prelude-**  
>  Elias' voice cuts through the haze of his office. "I thought I would come and check on how you are settling in," he says when Jon looks up with a start. "Are you finding everything to your satisfaction?" 
> 
> Jon looks around the cramped and crowded office, as if the space is answer enough. "I am wondering," he begins slowly, measuring his words in front of the Watcher, "just what sort of structure my predecessor maintained." 
> 
> Elias looks as well, amusement obvious in his gaze. "None, I would imagine." 
> 
> "Right…" 
> 
> He steps into the office, and Jon can feel the atmosphere shift and bend in his presence. It is like the attention of the world moves in to focus on him. "You will be able to get this straightened out in short order." 
> 
> Jon gives the stacks of papers and files, organized with no knowable rhyme or reason, a despondent glance. "Perhaps in a year, I will be able to make a dent—" 
> 
> "Jonathan," the man says, and Jon can't help but turn to look. "I didn't hire you because I valued your organizational skills." 
> 
> "No, Watcher, I don't imagine that you did." Though to be perfectly honest, he wasn't entirely too sure _why_ it had been him. 
> 
> Elias doesn't clarify, and merely smiles in answer to Jon's mounting confusion. "There will be many things in this line of work, Archivist," he says suddenly, and his tone shifts — filling the room with a gentle hum like the buzz of insects on a summer's day. "Powerful things, dangerous things, all who wish to do harm to you and the Archives. You must not let them." 
> 
> Jon opens his mouth to answer, but the atmosphere of the room presses in on his throat and makes it impossible to force the words out. So he nods, though Elias doesn't seem to notice. 
> 
> He is focused on a crossed out drawing of an eye in the corner of one of Gertrude's notes. Elias pulls the piece of paper free and considers it. "Understand that your first duty is to the Eye. That is something that I believe your predecessor forgot during her service here." 
> 
> Eventually, he looks up and smiles at Jon, and the tension of the room wavers — then shatters like glass. "I look forward to working with you, Archivist." 
> 
> "And you, sir," Jon manages, breathless, but Elias is already heading back for the door. 
> 
> Elias stops in the threshold, then glances over his shoulder. "Oh, one more thing." 
> 
> "Yes?" 
> 
> "Keep an eye on your assistants. I should hate for anything to befall them." With another benign smile, Elias closes the door to the office behind him. 
> 
> Jon wonders if that was just a simple word of advice, or a warning for the future. 

Melanie laughs. 

Lukas doesn't seem to expect this reaction, and he stares at both of them in shock. 

Sasha can't manage words around the chaos of sound in her head, but above it all, the gut-wrenching realization of _this is what he did to Martin_. 

Finally, Melanie is able to pull herself back under enough control to manage a cheerful if not vehement, "Fuck off." 

He opens his mouth, then snaps it shut again. 

"Listen, full offence, but we're not buying whatever you're selling. And I can tell you without any shred of a doubt…" Melanie leans in, around Sasha's shoulder, knife-sharp grin over her face. "Neither of us believe your bullshit." 

And then she loops her arm through Sasha's and tugs her into the maze of the stacks. 

Sasha starts to turn around, just to see if they're being followed, or what sort of reaction he might have, but Melanie squeezes her arm and pulls her in closer. 

"Don't look back. If there's one thing you need to know about this place, it's _don't look back_." 

Sasha wants to argue with her, to say that she knows this place better than most, but in the end it was that thinking that got her into trouble in the beginning. So instead she takes the lead and directs them out of one of the side doors of the Archives and they stumble out into the late afternoon sun. 

She releases Melanie as soon as they are free and she doubles over — hands on knees and struggling to force the air into her lungs. Her brain continues to run the noise on loop, over and over, the Eye and the Stranger and her own fears chasing themselves in circles. 

Melanie stands by, unimpressed. "It wasn't _that_ bad," she says, as if she has any right to comment on what is _bad_ by Sasha's standards. 

But she shakes her head, hand clenched to her chest and the other gripping her knee. _It's not mine,_ she wants to say. _It's not my fear._

It's everyone's. It's Jon's, Tim's, Daisy's, those whose marks she bears. 

And it's a reminder that she is only temporary. 

That's how Daisy and Tim find her, though she can't make out anything that they're saying. 

Tim's hand lands between her shoulder blades, and he eases her down onto the grass so she's no longer trying to stand on shaky legs. 

Slowly, eventually, everything settles into the gentle crackle of fire beneath his touch. She can hear him speaking to her in a low voice, repeating soothing words until she leans into his shoulder. 

Daisy crouches down in front of her. "What happened?" 

"I don't know," she whispers. She coughs to clear her throat and tries again. "A lot all at once." 

"Peter Lukas happened," Melanie spits. 

Daisy's head swivels up in her direction, and Tim's arm tightens around Sasha's shoulders. "Is he still in the Archives?" she asks with a tone that implies _I would like to rip his throat out with my teeth_.

The mark of the Hunt across her throat from Daisy's nails hums in agreement, and it's an effort to swallow it down. "No," Sasha says to that impulse. "I need…" She breathes in, and out. "I need you to get the others. We have to leave." 

"Where are we going?" Tim asks, helping her back to her feet as she tries to stand. 

"To the lake. I don't think we can be seen there." 

Melanie gets an expression like she wants to make a joke, but she does the monumental task of resisting the urge. "I'll find Georgie," she says, and heads off around the far side of the Archives. 

"Tim, can you get Basira?" Sasha asks before Daisy can offer. 

He looks offended at the suggestion. "I'd rather stay with you." 

"I'll meet you in ten minutes. Twenty, tops." She gives in to the urge to leave a kiss on his lips, simply because she can. "Daisy will be with me." 

She can feel the argument burning away inside him, but then he nods and steps away. He gives Daisy a brief, meaningful look before following Melanie. 

Daisy waits until he rounds the edge of the building before turning to Sasha. "I was serious, you know." 

"I know," Sasha says, rubbing her hand against her throat. 

Daisy watches, but doesn't react. 

Sasha struggles to try and figure out how to phrase what she wants to say — piecing between what she knows is likely, and what might just be fear talking. Slowly, hesitating, she says, "We are running out of time." 

There is the slightest twitch of Daisy' brow, but no other reaction. 

"I might have to be more reckless going forward. Whatever happens, your first task will always be protecting the others. Regardless of what that means for me." 

Daisy's head bows. "As I have been tasked by Jon." 

"No, this is me asking you as a favor." Again, her hand strays to her throat. She can feel the claws digging into her skin, and the razor wire of the Hunt around her arms. "I would not ask this of you if I didn't think it was the only way." 

With a snort, Daisy glances back where Tim had gone. "There are others who could do it." 

"Then if they react first against me, let them. Protect the others, that's all I ask." 

Daisy sighs and nods. "I understand." 

"Good." Sasha brushes past her to head back to the door into the Archives, but Daisy catches her before she can get close enough. 

"What do you think you're doing?" 

She tries to tug herself free, but Daisy's grip is stronger. "I need to write a letter." 

Daisy snorts. 

"To Martin." 

Her eyes narrow. "What good do you think that will do?" 

Sasha still hasn't told anyone how he pulled her into his own pocket dimension, or what he had said to her. "He's wrapped up in whatever Lukas is doing. And I don't believe that he's given up on Jon, so he needs to pick a side." When she gives her arm another tug, Daisy releases her and lets her go. 

Thankfully, the reading table she had occupied is empty. There is still the shape that Lukas had folded, which Sasha thinks might be a boat. 

Another sheet is folded in a strange diamond shape, tilted away. She bumps into it as she reaches for a clean page and a pen, and it blinks in her direction — a single, carefully folded eye. 

Her hand lashes out and knocks it away before she can even think about it. 

As quickly as she can manage, she writes a veiled note to Martin. She doesn't know if Lukas will find it or not, or if Elias will be able to read it if he tried. 

_Our solution might no longer be viable._  
_We'll be back soon. - S_

After a moment's hesitation, she draws a symbol onto the top half of the page. She doesn't have a piece of Martin to tie to the note, but she can at least do her best to ensure that he is the only one to read it. "In this house of eyes, may only his see," she whispers to the page, and finishes the spell with a breath. 

As quickly as she can, she slips back through the Archives to Martin's office. It's been ages since she's been up here. It used to belong to Michael, when he was still an assistant. Then it stood empty for over a year before it was claimed by Martin. 

When Sasha stretches out her connection to the Eye, trying to find any sort of evidence that anyone is behind the door, her search comes up blank. But based on the chills she had received from both Martin and Peter Lukas during her interactions with them, she's not certain that means the office is empty. 

She slips the letter beneath the door, and presses her hand to the wood. "I hope you're okay," she says softly. 

Then she turns away and leaves to meet with the others.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Prelude-**  
>  Georgie actually laughs when he tells her about the promotion. "You've turned it down, right?" she says, though the amusement drains from her expression as he looks away. "Jon, you turned down this job you're grossly unqualified for, didn’t you?" 
> 
> "I… Not really." 
> 
> "Bullshit _not really_ , what sort of answer is that? You either have or you haven't." She swings her feet off the window seat, where they were pressed against his thigh, and she leans in to glare at him. "Why haven't you?" 
> 
> "I merely haven't given an answer yet. I asked to think it over." He fiddles with the hem of his coat. It's stifling in this room, even in a dream, but he feels awkward taking it off now. 
> 
> Georgie snorts and leans back, crossing her arms over her chest. "Then when you go in tomorrow, you'll turn it down." 
> 
> "Why should I?" he asks despite himself, just to be contrary, and it only earns him another glare. "The Watcher requested me specifically." 
> 
> She rolls her eyes and gets up to start pacing. "Then that entire branch is going to fall off the tree, and you're better off not being tied to it. Surely they can just hire someone already at that Archive." 
> 
> "There is only one assistant remaining." 
> 
> "Then they can have that job." 
> 
> "I was… I was given the impression that she didn't want it…?" Jon realizes how ridiculous it sounds the moment he says it, and Georgie's ever lifting eyebrow does little to assuage the doubts. 
> 
> "Have you spoken to her about it?" 
> 
> He shakes his head. 
> 
> "Well then!" She tosses her hands into the air. "Tell them you don't want the job, this assistant can have the position in the meantime, and they can find someone more qualified."
> 
> "I don't see why I shouldn't be allowed to take the job!" he counters, rising to his feet as well. "I don't see why you think you have any qualification to tell me how to live my life—" 
> 
> "It's because we're friends—" 
> 
> "Then why don't you support me?" It comes out weaker than he wants, and he can feel the desperation in his tone. That childish need for some sort of connection and approval. 
> 
> He hates himself for it. 
> 
> Georgie's shoulders slump and she looks away. "You're right, Jon," she says eventually. "I ultimately don't have the authority to make you pick one way or another. All I can do is offer advice." When she looks back at him, he has to fight back the need to apologize. "I hope whatever you choose works out for you, truly, I do." 
> 
> "Georgie, I—" 
> 
> She leaves the dream before he can get the rest of the thought around whatever jumbled emotion has caught in his throat. 
> 
> Jon stands there in the middle of the room, the silence thundering in his ears. He tries to breathe. It doesn't work. He tries again, a ragged inhale. 
> 
> Third attempt, and the lodged emotion breaks loose to flood every inch of him. 
> 
> He wakes up gasping for breath and tears in his eyes. 

Basira and Tim have the horses saddled and ready to go when Sasha arrives, so they mount up and head back out to the lake as quickly as possible. 

Sasha spares a glance over Tim's shoulder at the Archives, hoping for some sort of sign that Martin has received the note — or is there, or even that he's okay. 

There's so much she wants to know, but doesn't have the strength needed to push back on the Eye. Something surrounds Martin that keeps him from her, similar to what kept Georgie's spell from being able to track him. 

There is little opportunity to talk on the ride, and they keep the breaks to a minimum. Nothing follows them, as far as Sasha is able to tell. She wonders if she might be overreacting, but the Eye urges her forward. 

It wants the Archivist back.

The lake is just as quiet as when they visited it before. The depths of it are darker, and Sasha freezes on the bank as she stares at the still waters. 

Slowly, she tilts her gaze up to the sky. There are streaks of gold and dark pink of the sunset, but it is only a matter of time before it is night. "So it will be like that after all," she says to herself. 

Tim takes her hand, and she grips it fiercely as they step into the lake together. 

The remains of their camp are easy to revive, and soon there is a fire burning merrily. They prepare a light meal, and sit down scattered across the shore, waiting. 

Sasha puts it off as long as she can, struggling to figure out the best way to explain the situation. She can feel Daisy's gaze on her, heavy and guarded. Tim doesn't make it easy through no fault of his own. His warmth at her side is comforting, and his fingers occasionally graze over her elbow or her knee. 

"Why does it feel like we're at a funeral?" Melanie grumbles as she picks at her food, feeding pieces of it to the Admiral. 

"Is this going to be Jon's second birthday, or something?" Tim jokes, though the smile doesn't make it all the way to his eyes. 

Sasha shakes her head and pulls her knees up to her chest. "Not really. A homecoming, more like. The Watcher was right in saying that he has been on a mission for the Eye, so to speak." At the mention of the Eye, Sasha starts to trace a pattern into the sand. 

When she realizes the shape that her fingers form, she forces herself to change it. She switches to the symbol she left on the note to Martin — a sigil to disguise and confuse. Over and over until the sand beside her is littered with it, and still she hasn't explained what she wants to. 

Eventually, she sighs and forces herself to relax. This is what it has built up to, after all. It all leads back to this. 

Sasha lifts her head and looks out at the lake. "Those of us here have the strongest ties to Jon. The core piece of him, the one that I retrieved from the End, will be the focus point. I… will be the focus point." 

"Oh," Georgie says softly. "Oh, Sasha." 

Basira's brow furrows and she looks from Sasha to Georgie, and then understanding creeps across her face as well. 

At her side, Tim goes completely still. Beneath the surface, his anger threatens to boil over, but for now, he manages to keep it under control. "You'll what?" he asks, and Sasha closes her eyes. 

"She will be a gateway, channeling the tethers," Georgie explains, her face pale despite the warmth of the fire highlighting her cheeks. "It—" She can't manage to finish the sentence. 

Melanie reaches for her. "It won't end well, will it?" 

Tim slams a hand into the sand between them and the flames leap with his anger. "Like _fuck_ you will," he says, turning towards Sasha. "There has to be another way." 

At some point, Sasha starts shaking her head. "If I rely on the Eye, then the person who comes back won't be Jon. And I… I can't let that happen." 

Martin's words come back to her, clearer now after her conversation with Lukas. _None of this means anything if he's not safe._

"Why _not_?" Tim's voice breaks, turning the question into a plea. 

"He's the only one that can stop this—" 

"What? Stop _what_ , and why should that be more important than you—" 

She lifts a hand to touch his cheek, and he bites his tongue to hold the rest of his anger in check. She wants to tell him to trust her, or that everything will be alright. 

But she can see the embers in his eyes and knows that part of the reason they are there is her fault. "I didn't know, or at least, I had hoped…" 

"That it wouldn't come to this?" 

Sasha hesitates, then nods, and he covers her hand with his own.

"Neither of us should have come back," he mutters. 

She leans up and kisses him. "You don't mean that." 

"One day does not make up for three years, Sasha." 

"It's going to have to." 

Tim exhales through gritted teeth, and bit by bit, the fire settles back to normal. "You always did care too much about this job," he says and lets her go. 

"My greatest flaw," she jokes, and at least Tim manages a small, strained laugh. 

When she looks back at the others, they've all averted their gaze and keep themselves occupied with whatever thing they could find. "It's almost time," she says. 

Georgie drops the facade immediately. "You don't have to be the one to do this, Sasha." 

Melanie hisses and smacks her girlfriend's arm. "Don't you _dare_ suggest that you could." 

She ignores Melanie, holding Sasha's gaze steady. "I know him best out of any of us. And my skill set might be more… suited to this work." 

"Georgie Barker, you don't owe that man anything—!" 

"I don't, but that shouldn't have to mean anything for a friend." 

Tim remains silent. 

Sasha rises to her feet and their argument falters. She brushes off her skirts and straightens her shoulders. "I need you as a support. You and Basira." 

Basira rises at the sound of her name. "Just tell us what to do." 

"I think you will both know better than I. I don't work with spirits or souls." She holds out her hands in a gesture towards the lake, and steps around the fire to lead the way. 

In the center, she guides Georgie and Basira into position on either side of her. 

"Are you sure this is a good idea?" Basira asks, voice low. "It didn't seem to work last time." 

"I was careless last time. I misunderstood the task set before me." Sasha takes their hands in hers and gives each woman a look. "If it starts to go wrong, and the Stranger tries to take over, then stop. Daisy will take care of the rest." 

Georgie's mouth is set into a firm line. "And what will happen to Jon, if that happens?" 

"If _I'm_ successful, then my hope is he's fast enough to get his ass back here to stop it, should that happen." She attempts a smile, but neither of them seem keen on matching it. So instead she huffs a sigh and shakes her head. "The honest answer is I don't know. There's a disconnect, obviously, and he and I are like reflections. But we each have the pieces of us that make us human — that's all of you — and the pieces of us that make us something else. The Eye, the Stranger, so on." 

"And the Archivist…?" 

"Is what happens if Jon isn't strong enough. The same way the Stranger took over my body when it had the chance. I need both of you to gather those pieces of _him_ , and to bind them together." 

Georgie nods and swallows. "I'm ready." 

Basira gives a curt nod as well. 

"Alright…" Sasha steadies herself with a breath and joins Georgie's and Basira's hands on either side of her. "Here we go." 

"Wait—!" 

The cold hits her like a wall, and Sasha's head whips back towards the shore. 

Standing there, silhouetted by the fire, is Martin. He meets her startled gaze with grim determination. "I'll do it," he says. "I'll find Jon."


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Prelude-**  
>  Jon is so distracted by his own mental list that he doesn't notice the fog curling around the shelves. It eddies around his ankles, but doesn't hinder his movement. 
> 
> In fact, it's only bodily colliding with Martin that manages to snap him out of his thoughts. 
> 
> He swears beneath his breath, scrambling to catch his bag and the things spilling out of it. "Damn thing won't— Oh, Martin!" The anxiety that has been clinging to him eases off, only to be replaced by something else. "Sorry. I didn't… I didn't see you there." 
> 
> Martin gives him a look that feels a little condescending. "It's fine," he says, passing over the book he had caught. "Excuse me—" 
> 
> "Wait—" Jon reacts without thinking, unwilling to lose him now, not when this is the first time in nearly two months that they've even seen each other. "Are you… I mean you probably are, but… I was wondering if—" 
> 
> "What, Jon?" he asks, and he just sounds so tired. 
> 
> Jon deflates a little, but presses on anyway. "I'm going to be leaving on a task for the Watcher. Just… Look after the others while I'm gone, I suppose." 
> 
> The corners of Martin's mouth pinch in a way that is painfully unfamiliar, and he seems to struggle with something before saying, "Is that all?" 
> 
> "No," Jon says. "No, it's not— I was wondering if you wanted to come with me. It will be like… old times?" He winces at the hopefulness in his voice, because it's not worth it. Not anymore. 
> 
> The Eye doesn't react, but the silence is pointed in its own way. 
> 
> Martin looks at him. The shock, when it does come, barely manages to pierce the lost expression on his face. "Jon…" 
> 
> "You're right, I'm sorry. You're busy with… Peter Lukas." The venom comes easily, as much as he tries to reign it in. He understands (he doesn't) what Martin is doing (he really doesn't understand). 
> 
> _I've explained it,_ the Eye tells him. _You understand._
> 
> He does (he doesn't). He doesn't want to, but he does. 
> 
> There is a huff of laughter from Martin, and the sound of it makes Jon's heart ache. "The last time we worked together, like _actually_ worked together on a job for the Watcher, it ended in, well… _worms_." 
> 
> Jon attempts a smile, but Martin doesn't return it. "To be fair, that was the entire Archive, not just us." 
> 
> "You told me after that you thought I was cursed." 
> 
> "I—" _didn't mean it,_ he wants to say, but doesn't. Because at the time, he was still shaking from Sasha's betrayal and reeling in the mire he had created for himself. Because at the time, it was easier to push people away than try to understand. 
> 
> Because at the time, he didn't know what this job would do to them. 
> 
> "I did say something along those lines, didn't I?" Jon finishes lamely. 
> 
> Martin doesn't say anything. 
> 
> Jon wonders how long his eyes have been that pale shade of gray. 
> 
> "I guess… I should be going," Jon finally manages. "I'll leave you to your work." 
> 
> Martin turns away, and Jon can feel his heart leaving with him. "Goodbye, Jon." 
> 
> "Goodbye, Martin," he says to the space that is left behind. Then, softer, as a fog rises to carry his words away, "Tell the others sorry for me."

The first thing Sasha feels is, selfishly, a wave of relief. The next is a pang of remorse that it should have to even come to this. 

"You came," she says instead. 

He nods. "I had to." 

Tim comes up behind him and gives him a hard pat on the shoulder. "Is that _really_ you, Martin?" 

"It's him," Daisy confirms with a sniff, ignoring Martin’s baffled expression. 

Melanie laughs and knocks his other shoulder with a fist. "Lukas finally let you go long enough?" 

Martin struggles to respond, and Sasha can sense the fog swirling within him. Lukas had said they were _family_ , though she wonders which came first: Blood, or the fog. "No, he's… He's not going to be happy that I'm here." 

Melanie's grin falls away and she rubs her hand over her chin. "I guess he has to catch us first." 

Sasha looks up, and the sky overhead is completely dark now. There's not a single star visible, though she knows there should be. She glances to Basira. "Am I right to guess that the Eye cannot see us here?" 

"Not in a grand scheme. It will be able to piece things together through you and the others, but not fast enough, and certainly not strong enough." She withdraws her pendant from beneath her robes with a somewhat guilty expression. "I believe it is a realm of the Blind." 

Her shoulders slump. "I was afraid of that…" 

"For what it's worth, we do not seek to interfere." 

"I thought your entire task was to stop Magnus." 

"It is, and we hope… well, _I_ hope that with Jonathan's help, we can." Basira steps back, dropping Georgie's hand and turning towards the shore. "Martin, if you want to help, then we'll need you here." 

He gives a wobbly nod and steps into the lake. Fog wafts from where the water laps at his legs, but he keeps a determined set to his jaw as he walks. 

From the shore, Tim looks over and catches Sasha's eye. He hides the relief well, but she can read it in every inch of him. 

She gives him a tiny, hopeful smile, and he returns it. She still doesn't know how this will end, and there is every chance that she will mess it up like she did with the Eye and the Stranger. 

But like she told Basira: She understands it better this time. The pieces that make up the whole. The ties that bind them together and how to strengthen them. 

After a beat, Tim follows after Martin, catching up easily to the other man with his loping stride. 

Daisy starts to follow as well, then turns back to offer her hand to help Melanie. 

Soon, they're all gathered in the center of the lake, the light from the fire barely enough to illuminate them. 

Sasha takes Martin's hands, not surprised to find that he's trembling. "Are you certain about this?" she asks, because she has to. It's one thing to be ready to sacrifice herself, but she can't expect the same of the others. 

"Of course," he says with a weak laugh. "If I can be good for one thing, let it be this." 

It hurts to hear him say it, but it echoes the piece of her that is wrapped up in the Stranger. 

Overhead, complete darkness peers between the invisible tops of the trees, and Sasha knows that it's now or never. 

She pulls him in to a short, fierce hug before once again grabbing his hands. "I have the tether that you will follow to Jon," she explains quickly, nodding to Georgie and Basira. "You have to remember: You're split in half between two marks."

"The Eye, and the Lonely," he says, holding her gaze steady despite the way it must ache. "I understand." 

"The Eye is what you will use to find Jon." She taps the center of his forehead, and then taps the center of his chest. "The Lonely will try to claim you when that happens. I will not be able to save you if it does." 

"I understand," Martin repeats. He looks at the others around them and tries to smile. "It was nice to see you all again." 

Sasha's throat closes around a lurch of fear, and she squeezes his hands. 

"Don't be like that," Tim says from just behind her. "We're all like cockroaches." 

For a moment, the emptiness that lingers at the edge of Martin's frame melts away and he gives a frown. "That's. Rude?" 

Tim laughs and reaches up to ruffle Martin's hair, the way he used to when it was the three of them, and everything seemed, not fine, but at least normal. "Any time someone tries to get rid of us, we just come back better than ever." 

Melanie's laugh is loud and jagged in the silence that follows, and she tries to stifle it in Georgie's shoulder to no avail. 

"That is a questionable leap of logic at best," Basira says with a groan. 

Even Daisy seems amused by his joke. "And now it's Jon's turn." 

This time, Melanie laughs so hard she chokes, and Georgie gives a fond smile as she lends a helping hand. 

"Alright, alright. Fine, Jon can have his second birthday," Sasha says, loud enough to be heard over Melanie’s wheezing breaths, and rolls her eyes. She runs her thumbs down Martin's palms and looks up at him. "Everyone, please get ready." 

Basira and Georgie place one hand on Sasha's shoulders, and the other onto Martin's forearms. 

Tim presses a kiss to her temple as his hand runs down the length of her spine. 

"Stop distracting me," she tells him.

He answers with one of his clever, playful grins but withdraws without further protest. 

Sasha closes her eyes and reaches out her senses. She can still feel the Eye, stifled as if under layers of cotton. Even the Stranger seems quieter here, though it claws at the walls of where it is locked away in protest. 

From there, it's easy to feel the ties that bind them together. String and wire and tenuous spiderweb. Carefully, Sasha pulls them together, looping them around her fingers the way she remembers doing when she was a child at her grandmother's loom. 

And then she begins to weave. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Interlude-**  
>  Martin finds himself standing on a familiar shore.
> 
> The cold is almost instantaneous, leeching the warmth from the cord wrapped around one hand. The cord trails off into the fog, getting swallowed up by the thick white unknown of this place, but it's still solid. 
> 
> He gives it a tug and feels resistance on the other end. 
> 
> "Hold on, Jon," he says, breath escaping him in a puff of fog. He feels like he should say something else, something romantic or heroic, but in the end he just starts walking. 
> 
> He keeps walking for what feels like a long while. One foot in front of the other. The tide pulls in and out in time with his breathing. Each exhale, each wave retreating from the shore, he can feel his thoughts getting more distant. 
> 
> He has this string. 
> 
> For some reason, he has this string. 
> 
> He keeps walking, though his steps are slowed by the water rising up past his knees. 
> 
> There is a thread tangled around his fingers. When he gives it an experimental tug, the end of it comes loose and trails in the water that is at the level of his thighs. 
> 
> "Huh," he says, and shakes it off, and lets it get carried away by the breeze. 
> 
> (read [_when your seams have come unknitted_](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25593436))


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Prelude-**  
>  Jon and the wolf who is Daisy practically spill out of the coffin, gasping in lungfuls of chilled night air and sending clods of dirt raining down across the compass rose. 
> 
> Frantic footsteps echo through the cavernous hall before Basira is on her knees in front of them. She slings Jon's grasping arm around her shoulders and hauls him free of the last of the dirt. And then she grasps the wolf by the scruff of her neck and tugs. 
> 
> Daisy's groan comes out more like an animal's whimper. She struggles against the grip and almost slips back down into the cloying arms of the Buried. 
> 
> _Promise me,_ she had asked Jon when they were trapped within. _Promise me she won't see me like this._
> 
> He hadn't been able to say anything. 
> 
> Now, her voice is a broken sob and her powerful jaws gnash in distress. "Don't look. I'm sorry. I tried, I did—" 
> 
> But Basira doesn't listen. She throws her arms around the wolf's neck and buries her face into the matted and patchy fur. "You're alive, Daisy." 
> 
> "I wish I wasn't. Not like this. Not again." 
> 
> "I've got you. It's alright. You're here. I've got you." 
> 
> Jon flops over onto his back, the cold marble sinking into his skin, and tries to block out their reunion. 
> 
> _There’s a wolf just beneath Daisy’s skin,_ Basira had said. _I have seen the damage it can do. But just as I believe there is a line between the Archivist and you, a man worth saving, so I believe that there is a line in Daisy._
> 
> It will be a long process to heal. 
> 
> But soon, the wolf will retreat. And they will learn to live with the mark of the Buried. 
> 
> The important thing is that these things will happen, and that they are not alone. 

For the first few minutes, Tim, Melanie, and Daisy stand in a tense circle around the others. And those first few minutes are quiet — a stillness only broken by the occasional droplet of water falling from one of them.

Tim is the first to break the silence. "Is… something actually going to happen?" he asks in a stage whisper. 

Melanie gives a derisive snort from her position leaning back to back with Georgie. "When has _anything_ gone silently." Her shoulders shake with laughter, and the movement sends little ripples cascading out from her. "You and Daisy both missed it when the Flesh attacked the Archives." 

"You should have seen the Corruption." 

"Quiet," Daisy snaps, and the two of them fall silent again. 

Tim starts to pace, though quickly gives up on it when he decides the effort is not worth it while standing waist deep in a lake. He turns to Sasha instead. "Do you want me to wipe the sweat from your brow?" 

Daisy knocks his shoulder. "Stop distracting them." 

"Right…" Tim says. He crosses his arms, uncrosses them, then rests his hand on the hilt of his sword. "Right." 

Sasha doesn't reply. Her attention is split into too many different places, following each of the strands that form the tether for Martin to follow. She can feel them pulling at the bonds, testing the connection. And beneath it all, she can feel the chill of the Lonely wafting up through the gap Martin left behind. 

Her hands tighten their grip on his, reassuring herself that he is still there, and hoping that everything is enough to keep him grounded. 

If anyone has a chance of coming back with Jon in tow, it's Martin. 

Sasha knows without a doubt that she would have been lost if she had been the one to go. She is only here as a replacement, and the ties that bind her to the others are weak at best. 

Tim would not have been enough to save her, not if the Stranger was able to take over. 

To her right, Basira gives a sharp inhale, and Sasha follows the trail of her focus. 

There, at the very edges, is a hairline fracture in their shroud of darkness. It forms the hint of a fractal pattern, branching paths of a bolt of lightning or perhaps a web. 

"Patch it," Sasha orders, and she can feel Tim and Daisy's attention shift to her. "Everyone else, get ready." 

"What's happening?" Tim asks, drawing his sword all the same. 

"There are things trying to get in." Sasha closes her eyes and gives the tether an experimental tug. Slack, but still there. It's hard to tell how much time has passed for Martin, if he's even been able to locate Jon. "Any luck?"

Georgie grunts in the negative, and Basira's fingers grip Sasha's shoulder tighter. 

Just behind Basira, Daisy flexes her hands and rolls her shoulders. She doesn't reach for her sword. 

_If that mutt gets to run free, why can't we?_ the thing inside of her asks, and Sasha can feel it prodding at the edges of her focus in an attempt to find any weakness. _We could make all those things out there tremble in fear, and we would just eat it up._

She doesn't spare it the energy to answer, doubling down on her own defenses as best she can instead. 

Another crack appears, and Sasha can feel Basira's muscles flex as she reaches out to cover it. The weave is thinning out, and the force of the things beyond threatens to breach the edges of their defenses. 

Things coming for Jon — for her, as his replacement. So many bearers of marks gathered in one place draws all of the hungry fears, desperate for a taste. Wanting to stop whatever they plan on bringing forth with this ritual of their own. 

Daisy leans in to Basira, ducking her head down so her lips are next to the other woman's ear. "I don't think I will be able to hold it back." 

Basira's brow is furrowed in concentration, and she spares Sasha a quick look. "I won't be able to stop you if something happens," she warns Daisy. "I cannot break this circle." 

Daisy's hand, when she reaches for Basira's shoulder, looks more like claws. Like the hand she used to try and hold the Stranger beneath the lake. "I just need you to trust me."

Sasha doesn't have to try hard at all to pick up on the raging thrill of the Hunt waiting to emerge. She wonders just what this has to do with Basira, but doesn't press on the connection between them to learn. 

Straining under her hold on the Darkness, Basira looks like she wants to argue. But she gives a firm nod. "I do. Remember your promise." 

"I won't forget," Daisy says and presses her forehead to Basira's. Then she pulls away and takes up her position. 

On Sasha's left, Georgie bites her lip and gives Melanie a quick glance. The other woman deftly strings her bow and runs her fingers over the fletching of her arrows. 

And then Georgie gasps and stumbles under a sudden weight. "I can feel him," she says, breathless, almost a sob of relief. "Martin found him."

Sasha flexes her fingers and wraps them tighter around the bonds. "Both of you be ready. We only get one shot at this." 

Basira nods, jaw tense. She inhales through her nose, then out through pursed lips. "Here we go." She tilts her head back towards the dark sky above, eyes closed, and starts to hum. 

Around them, the still and unblinking darkness ripples — shifting in time to the rise and fall of Basira's notes. 

There is a moment of picture perfect silence, and then it shatters. 

Eyes of hundreds of shapes and creatures swivel to focus in on them, things touched by the Flesh and Corruption, the Hunt and the Slaughter. Sasha can feel the presence of the Watcher in each of them. His curiosity, his frustration, his _anger_ honing in on her, and she knows he's realized what she's done. 

Sasha allows herself a small moment to gloat, because until this point, he didn't think it was possible. He thought she would fail, just like she did the time she tried to bind herself to the Eye. 

"Not this time," she breathes, and digs her fingers into the mess of tangled strings to yank them back. 

Beneath her grip, Martin's hands twitch in response. 

Daisy throws back her head and howls as the Hunt surges to the surface. 

Sasha loses track of the pieces after that. The threads knot together before they surge through her, and it's all she can do to keep them separated from the ones bound to Jon. Let the meaningless ones scrabble and claw at her all they want in an effort to stop her. 

The others have her back. All she needs to do is help Georgie and Basira bind the pieces of Jon as she reels in the tethers. 

That's probably why she doesn't realize the curious prickle of an entity until it's too late, and a single strand of the Darkness breaks through. 

Seeing its opportunity, the Stranger throws the doors of her open wide, and Sasha loses her grasp on _everything_. 

Basira cries out as her connection to the Darkness squirms free of her control, and her hand slips from Sasha's shoulder in a belated attempt at stopping it. 

"Don't—!" Sasha shouts. Black fills her vision, and she can feel her connection to the Eye tearing lose. "Don't let go, Basira." 

She grits her teeth but doesn't drop her grasp completely. "I won't be able to stop it." 

"Then _don't_. Focus on Jon. Don't worry about me." She can barely hear the chaos around them as the creatures in the forest swarm the lake. She knows that they're fighting, can hear the song of the bloodlust and the fire pulling at the marks left on her.

But she doesn't panic. Even as the last of her vision flickers out into pitch black, she doesn't panic.

The Darkness saws away at her feeble connection to the Eye, trying to close her off. The Stranger pushes against her again, and the edges of her begin to come loose. 

Something cold and numbing starts to crawl up her legs. She can't see what it is — she can't see anything, but still, she doesn't panic. 

"Hold on," Georgie says, though Sasha doesn't know who it's directed to. 

She wants to. She's trying. But one by one the strings are snapping and the Stranger thrashes harder in the confines of its weakening cage.

Sasha looks in Basira's direction, and all she can see is the single closed eye where the woman's forehead would be. "Tell Tim I'm sorry," she says, voice barely audible even in her own ears. 

"No!" Basira's voice breaks through the darkness as a burst of gold, but Sasha ignores it in favor of giving the tether one final tug. 

The last thing she feels is Martin's hands closing around hers, and she knows that it worked. 

Then the thing around her ankles pulls, and she is dragged away. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Interlude-**  
>  Jon comes back to himself in one sudden rush.
> 
> Martin's arms close around his shoulders as he lurches into an upright position from beneath the surface of the lake. His lungs remember how to breathe, and he gulps down as much of the water as he does air. 
> 
> The warmth on either side of him immediately withdraws, but Martin is still there — arms wrapped around him, holding him tight. 
> 
> The general hum of chaos slowly comes to a stop, save the blood pounding in his ears as he tries to remember how the pieces of him make up a whole. The first thing he hears is Martin's whisper in his ear, soft and breathless. "We did it," he says, gasping. "We did it." 
> 
> Then he hears Tim's voice cut through it all like a bright blade. "Where is Sasha?" 
> 
> Basira responds with a strangled wheeze, and Jon looks up to see her covering her face with her hands. "I don't know." 
> 
> Tim's gaze sweeps the lot of them then hones in on Jon. The anger is immediate and ferocious. "What did you do to her?" 
> 
> "I didn't—" Jon tries, too weak to even stand up. " _What_?" 
> 
> "It wasn't him," Basira snaps, and when her hands pull away Jon can see the dark flash of the mark of the Blind behind her eyes. "It was my fault." 
> 
> Tim pauses, then slowly, degree by painful degree, rounds on her. "You." 
> 
> "I couldn't control the Darkness and bind the pieces of Jon at the same time." She stands her ground as Tim moves to stand toe to toe with her. "She didn't let me withdraw." The ice around her features drops as her words visibly sink into Tim's posture. "She… she said she was sorry." 
> 
> There's a beat before he shoves his sword back into its sheath. "Fuck you," Tim tells her, then swivels to look at Jon. "And fuck you, too." He makes to leave, but a large wolf plants herself in his path. 
> 
> "We're not done yet," Daisy growls, baring her fangs at him. "You don't get to just walk away from this a second time." 
> 
> He starts to steam, which Jon might have found funny under any other circumstance. "I shouldn't have come back. You should have left me where you found me! And you should have left Sasha, too." 
> 
> But Daisy stands her ground, the low rumble of her warning still echoing in her chest. 
> 
> Tim turns back to Jon, and for just an instant, regret and exhaustion wash over his face. But then the fire is back and he glares. "I hope you're worth it." 
> 
> Jon doesn't say that he hopes so too, but Tim seems to understand the unspoken sentiment.


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Prelude-**  
>  Jon suppresses the shiver as he pushes open the door to Elias' office. "You wanted to see me, Sir?" His eyes land on the older man standing off to the side and his stomach sinks. "Oh." 
> 
> "I see you're already acquainted with Peter Lukas," Elias says, his voice holding the same disdain that Jon feels. 
> 
> "We've only met in passing." Lukas steps forward to hold his hand out to Jon. He has the same pleased smile on his face that he did while in Martin's office. "A delight to officially be introduced, Head Archivist." 
> 
> Jon hesitates before slowly reaching up to return the handshake, though he regrets it the moment their hands meet. The knowledge that he had been trying _not_ to learn surges to the surface, as if just waiting for the excuse. 
> 
> As if waiting for the right person to open the door. 
> 
> "You're Martin's guardian…?" he asks despite himself, because a piece of him is curious. The piece of him tangled up with the Eye, who craves the knowledge. 
> 
> The question seems to amuse Lukas, and his smile broadens. "What a clever boy," he tells Elias, as if Jon isn't thirty-one years old or standing right there. 
> 
> Elias' expression tightens as his mouth pinches into a thin line. "Yes, I'm honored to have such a capable Head Archivist. It will take more than a few parlor tricks to pull one over him, Peter." 
> 
> Lukas grins in a way that indicates there is a large piece that Jon is missing, daring him to figure it out, so Jon does. Despite himself. 
> 
> When the answer pierces the general sort of fog that seems to hang around this man, Jon's eyes widen in surprise. "You're here on behalf of the Lonely."
> 
> "Well done! That was faster than I thought." Lukas folds his hands behind his back and smiles down at Jon like a doting uncle. 
> 
> Jon goes immediately on the defensive. "Why were you in Martin's office?" 
> 
> "That? Just wanted to check up on the boy. And I wanted to speak to Elias about the possibility of having him come work for the family business, which would of course mean he would no longer be able to work here." 
> 
> "Let's not get too hasty," Elias says in a tone that indicates he is not pleased with Lukas' request. "It is up to Martin to decide." 
> 
> "Of course," Lukas replies graciously. "I figured since I was here…" 
> 
> Elias doesn't return the smile. "Of course." His gaze shifts to Jon. "Peter will be assisting with the administrative side of the Archives for awhile, as I must continue to run you ragged — and I'm afraid your assistants aren't quite trained for the job at hand." 
> 
> Jon wants to defend them, because he had been there in the beginning. But it is also true that, aside from Martin and possibly Basira, the others don't seem too keen on even being a part of this job. "I understand. Thank you." He gives a polite nod to Lukas. "Now, if that's all, I have to finish the follow up on Hindley manor…" 
> 
> Elias waves a hand to dismiss him. "Thank you, Jon. As you were." 
> 
> He doesn't bother sparing another look back at Lukas as he leaves. But he does make a mental note of keeping an eye on Martin. 

When Sasha can see again, she's standing in the middle of the Lonely. 

When her brain catches up with what is happening, she realizes that she can't feel any of the marks. She can't feel the Eye, and more importantly, she can't feel the Stranger. 

" _Shit_ ," she gasps, hand pressed to her chest. 

Her heart jumps to the touch, a frantic pulse that lets her know that at least she's alive. A start, even if a meager one. 

She cups her hands to her mouth and shouts. "Hello? Anybody?" 

"And I had asked you so _nicely_ ," Peter Lukas says from behind her. 

Sasha whirls around, her skirts heavy with water and fog. "What am I doing here?" 

"Staying out of my way." He makes a gesture like he's studying his nails before turning his cold gaze on her. 

"Martin made it out of the grasp of the Lonely," Sasha surmises, "and so you're taking it out on me." 

The genial old man persona that he had donned in the Archives is gone, replaced with a chill that could rival his domain. "Please don't tell me you are actually this incredibly ignorant to what is going on." 

She can't help the laugh, and gestures to the vast emptiness. "If you truly know about me, then you'll understand how out of the loop I am." 

"I was under the impression that you were intelligent, or at the very least, a force to avoid." 

Those are words she would have used for Gertrude. Hearing them applied to herself is strange, and she’s not certain how much she deserves them. Still, she pulls herself up a little straighter, and tries to channel the ferocity she had seen in Gertrude. 

"I am all those things," she replies and allows a grin to slip across her lips. She can see that he's put off by her not immediately crumbling under the pressure. 

And even without the Eye, she's able to piece together the story. All that Basira feared, laid out before her. 

When she speaks, her words ring with the truth, and she injects all the weight of the Watching that she can manage. "You know about Jonah Magnus." 

His reaction is a full-body flinch, so she pushes her advantage and takes a step forward. 

"You know about how he is using the Watchers and the Archives to predict his futures and arrange them how he pleases." She takes another step, bare feet splashing in the shallow surf. "You know that with Jon in his grasp, he will be able to make this vision a reality." 

"And you just handed the Archivist back to him," Lukas snaps. 

"I brought back a friend who once saved my life!" She advances until she stands before him, unwilling to be cowed by his presence. "If you think I'm going to stand here and tremble in this place, then you have underestimated me." 

Lukas' lips curl back in a sneer as he stares down at her. "Not only have you robbed me of a perfectly good avatar for the Lonely, but you have handed the key back to the one man who is willing to sacrifice the world's freedom in order to have his perfect future." 

"That was next on my list of things to stop," Sasha replies flippantly. 

He exhales a huff of breath through his nose, and then forces a smile into place. "Perhaps Martin was right, and that getting Jon back wasn't such a bad thing. I know he'd be willing to at least fight against Jonah's vision, if only he had a little more backbone." Lukas extends a hand, and Sasha is determined not to shy away from it. 

But he doesn't try to touch her. Instead, he gives a little _snap_ of his fingers. 

Her shoulders tense, but nothing happens. 

"You have made yourself an incredibly valuable replacement, Sasha." His smile is almost fond, if not more than a little condescending. "So while I can't have exactly what I want, I can at least have the pleasure of removing you from the table." 

He vanishes before she can get another word in, and standing in his place is her reflection. 

A slow, dangerous smile spreads across the reflection's face, and delight fills the eyes that look so much like her own. 

"Hello, Sasha," the thing says, and _that voice_. She knows that voice, almost as well as her own. Because it has used her voice before, stretching and distorting her vocal chords, twisting her words into something of its own. "It's been awhile." 

For the first time in a long time, Sasha feels _true_ fear — the desperation of everything being taken from her, of her reality spinning out of control, of her own body betraying her. 

Of the horrifying realization that she is truly alone, without even this thing inside her chest to keep her company. 

It grins, as if reading her thoughts, and reaches out a hand to her. "Let's have some fun, shall we?" 

Sasha's scream is cut short as it lunges. 


	18. Chapter 18

> **Prelude-**  
>  The thing that is not Sasha bends low over Tim and gives a pleased grin as he shudders beneath its touch. "Fancy seeing you again," it says in a voice that is almost her's, but wrong. "What _is_ it about you, I wonder?"
> 
> "Stop—" His own voice is hoarse, stifled, lungs unable to pull in enough air.
> 
> It has one hand pressed to his chest to keep him down, the other scratching lines into the marble floor next to his head. "You had a brother that I took, didn't you? What was his name again? I suppose it doesn't matter. He was _delicious_."
> 
> Tim struggles and chokes back a sob, but the thing doesn't relent. "Stop it."
> 
> "I wonder what you would taste like if I wore your skin. Would you taste like him?" It tilts its head to the side, listening, and the grin twists and changes. "Oh, she doesn't like that. Can you hear her? My, what a screamer." It leans down, lips next to his ear, like it wants to tell him a secret. When it speaks, it affects her voice. " _Please! Let him go!_ "
> 
> "You monster—" he starts, but the growl is cut off as the thing presses its arm down on his neck.
> 
> It's stronger than Sasha, heavier than her, all wrong angles and sharpened edges. "Ah ah ah," it says in its twisted version of her voice. "Be a good boy, Timothy! Oh, it sounds so sweet on her tongue. I wonder how it would have tasted on your brother's. But in her mouth? Mmm she's so fond of you."
> 
> It laughs and sits back, knees pinning his shoulders to the floor as he tries to squirm free. It considers its hands and starts to idly pick at the skin. "Should I make you watch? As I peel her skin off. I'll leave her ears for last so we can listen to your screams—"
> 
> "Stop."
> 
> The thing that is not Sasha freezes, the smile slowly slipping from its face. "Archivist," it says, forcing cheer. "You've come to join us."
> 
> Jon stands in the middle of the walkway, expressionless. "Get off of him," he orders.
> 
> Its grin strains, and its muscles twitch as it tries to resist. Slowly, like a puppet jerked on its strings, the thing rises to its feet.
> 
> Tim wheezes and rolls over, struggling to regain his breath.
> 
> "You are not allowed in these halls, Stranger." Jon's words taste like iron, and hold a weight that he's not familiar with. Still, he advances a step and delights in the flicker of fear over the thing's face.
> 
> "You'll find, Archivist, that your assistant let me in." It does a mocking little courtesy. "If you don't mind waiting, I'll be able to get _exactly_ what she thinks—"
> 
> Jon's eyes flash a sharp and sudden gold, and the Stranger gasps. "You'll leave her body _now_."
> 
> It tries to fight against his compulsion. "I can't," it grits out. "You know that. I go, she goes with me."
> 
> "I don't care—"
> 
> "No, don't!" Tim coughs, barely able to hold himself upright. "Jon, don't. Please, she's still in there."
> 
> The heavy golden gaze settles on Tim, and for a moment, the light flickers with uncertainty. "It is just wearing her skin, Tim."
> 
> "I _know_! I know, but... _Please_."
> 
> "Jon, please," the thing that is not Sasha says in her voice, its face a mockery of contrition, but the tone is enough.
> 
> Jon hesitates and the gold is gone, and in that moment, the Stranger lunges across the distance between them.
> 
> He gives a strangled shout as its hand closes around the lower half of his face, nails digging into flesh like it aims to pull it right off of him.
> 
> It forces him down onto his knees, breath coming out heavy between gritted teeth, but relishing his anguished cry. "When I'm done with her, you're next, Archivist," it snarls.
> 
> Jon shoves his own hand into its face and the gold pulses beneath his skin. "That body will be your prison, Stranger. You are not in control of it. The Eye is your warden, and it will _know_ every little thing you do."
> 
> The scream ripped from its mouth twists in rage and fear, and it struggles to free itself from Jon's grasp.
> 
> He doesn't relent, slowly getting back to his feet as the light seeps from his hand and binds the Stranger's limbs. "You will not feel freedom again," he says, and the light is gone.
> 
> The body crumples to the marble floor, clawing at its chest, and the scream that echoes back over the domed ceilings is Sasha's once again.
> 
> Tim scrambles across the distance, saying her name, pressing a hand to her cheek.
> 
> When her eyes snap open, there is a flash of the Archivist's light, and Tim flinches back. It is no more than a moment, but the damage is done. The fear lingers in his chest and the shutters go down around her broken heart.
> 
> Jon waits until he hopes his voice is stable enough. "Sasha James, you are banned from the Archives." The words aren't his - he wants to apologize, to ensure she's okay. But the Watcher told him what would need to be done to protect this place. "Pack your belongings and leave before the sun sets."
> 
> He turns on his heel and leaves them there on the floor.

* * *

The wet sand does little to cushion her fall, and the cold water of the Lonely floods her mouth as she gasps for air. 

"Three whole years," it growls, shoving her deeper as the tide slowly rises. "I was stuck inside your pathetic little body." 

She struggles beneath it, but she remembers with painful clarity how strong it can be. 

"Almost made it, once. Would have had you, too, if the Hunter wasn't so stubborn." 

Sasha manages to get her knee in between them and creates some leverage so she can flip them over. "So what happens now?" she gasps, scrambling back out of its reach. "If I die, you die too. Jon bound you to me." 

It lies in the sand, laughing. Its head cranes up so it can hold her gaze steady. When it begins to push itself upright, its limbs move at impossible and inhuman angles. "An inconvenience I'm willing to overlook if it means I finally get to wring your neck." 

"And that's all you want? To kill me?" She's trembling too much to try and get to her feet. She tries to find her connections to her marks, but they float just out of reach. There is only the Lonely, crawling beneath her skin the longer she stays there. 

"At this point, it's the only joy I can have." It advances on her, clearly savoring the fear that wafts off her. "You wouldn't deprive yourself that, would you?" 

Sasha laughs despite herself. "Don't talk like you know me." 

Its head ticks to the side before it slowly gets to its knees. "Don't I?" it asks, crawling towards her — matching her unsteady retreat. "Don't I know every little intimate detail about you?" 

Bony fingers wrap around her ankle, and it drags her forward with a sharp tug. "Why not enjoy these last few moments? I don't have your lover's face, but I have his brother's, don't I?" The skin of its face begins to ripple and its voice, for a moment, sounds _almost_ like Tim's. "Would you like it if he took you apart piece by piece?" 

_Tim_ , she thinks, and latches onto the memory of him. His easy smile and his love-drunk laugh and the inferno in his chest. The mark of the Desolation burns across her palms, the same as when she had grasped his burning skin. 

"Like _fuck_ I would," Sasha snarls and shoves her flaming hand into the Stranger's face. 

The pain is immediate and _intense_. 

She screams, recoiling and clutching at her own burning face with her hands as the Stranger laughs above her. 

"We're still the same thing," it crows through blistered lips. "You're not strong enough, are you? You can't handle the damage I will cause. Because you are _weak_." 

It pins her arms above her head with one hand and grips her chin with the other, forcing her to look up into her own face — the burned skin raw, and expression twisted in a wicked grin. "Every connection you have to one of the others will just hurt you when you try to reach for them. That's all they are to you: weapons and tools. And you're a broken little doll who can't even keep herself together." 

Sasha bites back the sob that threatens to tear open her chest. Everything that she's shoved down, all the years telling herself that she's _not_ like Gertrude, that she cares. The reminders that she cares too much. Gives too much of herself away until there is nothing left but an empty spot to fill. 

"That's us!" it says with a laugh and knocks its forehead into hers. Slowly, fondly, its hands wrap around her throat. "A hollowed out skin just waiting for someone to notice and care as much as you do." 

The thing is so close now that all she can see are her own panicked eyes reflected in its gaze — and that's when she notices the new mark etched into the iris. 

One eye open, her connection to the Eye. 

One eye closed, her connection to the Blind. 

Sasha moves without thinking, because this thing is inside her head even as it jabs its knee into her stomach and its hands squeeze her throat. 

She digs her nails into the skin of its face (of her face), hard enough to draw blood, forming a cage with her fingers around the left eye. She can feel the five crescent shapes forming on her own skin but still she _digs_. She holds on as the thing thrashes and screams back at her. 

"I bind you in Darkness," Sasha hisses. Her breath comes out labored as she pushes herself upright. But still she does not let go. With her other hand, she grips the side of the thing's face and forces its right eye open. "I bind you in sight of the Eye." 

From beneath her skin, a brilliant golden glow lights up the water pooling around them. 

The Stranger howls, and its form shifts and flickers within her grasp. 

But still she does not let go. "Look at me." Her mouth tastes of anise and iron and salt water and her head spins, but she pushes as much compulsion as she can into those words.

Its wild eyes finally meet hers, and she revels in the fear wafting off of it. 

" _I am the Archivist, and I bind you._ " 

The flash of gold blinds her, but she can feel the pressure on her ribs — the unwilling creature being forced back into her chest where it was locked away. It leaves her hunched over and gasping for air, each inhale filling her mouth with fog and sand and her own hair, plastered to her face with sea water. 

Sasha shoves it aside as her thoughts slowly return to focus. It's hard to adjust, and the mark of the Blind in her left eye feels raw and itchy, but she resists the urge to rub it. It will be familiar, soon. 

The golden glow remains, a softer, diffused light over her skin. 

_As beautiful as a sunrise,_ Tim had said, and Sasha allows herself a tiny, tired laugh.

Slowly, muscles aching and vision swimming, Sasha pushes herself to her feet. She sways dangerously before finding her balance. Breathe in, breathe out. 

She throws her head back and shouts into the never-ending fog. "Peter Lukas! Show yourself before I am forced to tear this whole place apart!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Interlude-**  
>  (The scene you see is thus: The Lonely appears when he is called. He tries to play it off that it's of his own free-well, but you know compulsion when you hear it. 
> 
> And it's all you can hear — the whisper of thousands of voices, echoing and framing her words as she stands there in the shallows. Beneath it, the sound of the Lonely, an ocean's roar, not strong enough to drown her. 
> 
> Nothing is strong enough to drown her now. The fog tries to smother her, but her hands burn with fire and her hands drip with blood and her right eye burns with golden light. You know her, she is the Archivist. Imperfect, unlike you, missing crucial pieces, but the ones she does hold do not care of the lack. 
> 
> "What did you expect to get out of this?" she asks, and the compulsion works its way into his throat to pull out the words. 
> 
> You can't hear his crime, but you know the tune of it in the way the waves crash upon the shore. _To create a world the Eye cannot see. To create a forest of worlds of people unable to touch, unable to influence each other. To drown it in fog until there is nothing left to Watch._
> 
> She laughs and advances a step. 
> 
> Startled, he retreats. 
> 
> Another step, and he trips over his feet. 
> 
> But the Archivist does not press the attack. She kneels at his side and puts a hand on his shoulder. She whispers into his ear, and this you cannot hear. These are her own words, quiet and pointed. They carry the weight of a woman scorned. 
> 
> His eyes go wide at what she tells him, but you cannot see her face. The darkness pooling from her left eye obscures your vision. 
> 
> When she plunges her hand into his chest, it goes as easily as if passing through mist. He cries out as she twists, the muscles of her arm flexing as gold and black ribbons spool out of the wound she created. 
> 
> She rises to her feet and turns to you as the tide rolls in to cover what is left. Her face is a smudge of shadow. Her face is a blinding star. "We're not yet finished, Jon," she says, and then she's gone. 
> 
> And the fog rolls in. 
> 
> And the Lonely fades away.)


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Prelude-**  
>  There's a knock at the door to the Archives.
> 
> Sasha sets down her pen and listens — wondering if perhaps it's her imagination filling in the silence with memories of Michael and Gerry. Or perhaps it could be Tim, two days earlier than he said he would be, but he's been known to surprise her.
> 
> The knock comes again.
> 
> No, not Tim. He doesn't knock, he just swans in like he owns the place. And the door is never locked.
> 
> So she pushes out her senses, following the well-worn path down the hall from her office, down the stairs and to the door. Pulling at the threads until a picture forms of a man standing outside the doors.
> 
> Sasha gets the door before he can knock a third time.
> 
> The man is a little older than her, though the bags under his eyes make it hard to really tell. Relief almost washes out the nervousness that clings to him. "Oh, good. I was hoping someone was here."
> 
> She steps aside to let him in, giving him a closer inspection as he passes. He has a mark of the End on him, and perhaps it could be said that he looks quite near to death, but there doesn't seem to be anything otherwise remarkable about him. "Can I get you something? Tea, or a biscuit?"
> 
> "What? Oh, no. Thank you though." He lingers just inside the door, not far enough that Sasha can close it without feeling rude for pushing him out of the way. "Are you the Head Archivist?"
> 
> Her emotions do some sort of complicated dance inside of her chest. "Sorry, I'm not. She just left this morning. I'm her assistant, though, if you wanted to leave a statement…?"
> 
> She is the only assistant left.
> 
> Sometimes, she wonders if that's why Gertrude finally started to train her in the Head Archivist's duties, because she's the last one standing.
> 
> This seems to distress him, so Sasha leads the man further into the Archives to find a chair for him. "Do you know when she will return?"
> 
> "Not for at least another week." Sasha takes a seat at his side. "But I assure you I am just as capable as she is in respect to the duties of the Archivist."
> 
> The man sighs and scrubs a hand over his face. When was the last time that he slept? "I'm afraid this… is a personal matter."
> 
> "Is it about the End…?" she hazards.
> 
> He gives her a startled look. "Yes. You're able to tell, then?"
> 
> "I can only read the marks left behind, but I'm great at putting the pieces together."
> 
> This manages to get a wry smile from him, so she counts it as a victory. It does, however, fall away just as quickly as it arrived. "I wanted to inform her about the death I saw. _Her_ death."
> 
> She should have expected this. She should have expected Gertrude to be the subject of his concern in such a fashion, but it still knocks the air out of her lungs. "Oh…" is all she can muster.
> 
> He remains silent and lets her process this.
> 
> Finally, Sasha gathers herself and goes to fetch paper and a pen for notes. "Do you have any additional details you can provide? A timeline, or a method?"
> 
> "Within the week, I'm afraid," he says softly. "I suppose it will be of some reassurance to know that it will be _here_ , but…"
> 
> She forces herself to write it down, because it will be easier to deal with as data. "Anything else?"
> 
> He studies her before speaking, seeing something that she cannot. "It will not be a pleasant end," he says, voice distant and floating. "I do not have the exact details, only impressions."
> 
> She writes this down as well. "Thank you. I… I will look into this, see if there is anything in the Watcher's statements that might help." Sasha makes a vague gesture over her shoulder, deeper into the Archives. "Would you… like to stay for awhile? Perhaps take a nap?"
> 
> His laugh is pleasant but exhausted. "I must be getting on, but thank you for the offer." He rises to his feet, and Sasha jumps to follow. "I can see myself out."
> 
> "Are you sure there isn't anything I can do?" she asks, hurrying the few paces he has gained in the direction of the door.
> 
> Again, he pauses and turns his heavy gaze upon her. "What is your name?" he asks.
> 
> "Sasha."
> 
> He considers this, then nods. "My word of advice: Find a way to make yourself scarce when the time comes. I would hate for your end to come too soon."
> 
> With that, he leaves her standing there, shocked into silence.
> 
> It is only after the door closes behind him that she realizes she never got his name.

Sasha steps out of the Lonely and back into the Archives. 

Water drips from her skirts, and fog clings to her ankles, but she barely notices. 

She tests her marks, running through them one by one, ensuring they're still there. Then she checks the binding on the Stranger, satisfied that it's secured. 

The Eye hums in warning, and she turns to find Elias standing directly behind her. 

"You've had quite an impact in a very short span of time, Miss James," he observes. His eyes glint green as he looks her over, and a wry smirk graces his lips. "Amazing. I had to wait so many years for Jonathan to start obtaining his marks, and you just threw yourself right into the fray." 

"I've always been an impatient woman." 

Elias laughs, thin and breathy. "And I've always been a patient man, but I fear that you have overstepped far too many lines since you've returned." He takes a casual step forward, and the constant hum of the Eye grows louder, tenser. 

Sasha keeps her feet firm on the ground. She listens to the whispers, the knowledge that the Eye feeds her. "You always did have a fear of powerful women, didn't you? Is that why you killed Gertrude?" 

His eyebrows lift and there is a delightful moment of shock before a cruel smile takes over his expression. "I see. It seems the Eye has taken quite a liking to you this time around." 

The Eye continues to whisper into her ear, but all she can focus on is the implication behind his smile and the greed in his eyes. "Your Head Archivist has returned, like I promised. I was only ever temporary." 

"Sasha," he says and laughs. She doesn't like the way her name sounds from his mouth. "Sasha, you've made yourself a valuable asset, and you did not have the common sense to just _stay away_." 

He advances another step, and now the humming is like a physical presence ringing in her head. 

She shifts her weight back, but too late she realizes that the water pooling around her from the Lonely makes the marble slick and dangerous.

"It's rather a shame that Gertrude caught on so quickly. And she was so subtle about it, too. At the time, I thought I couldn't use you. You're too like her. She must have told you everything." Elias maintains the distance between them, though it's close enough that he could reach out and grab her if he wanted to. 

The humming folds itself into a knife, digging into her ribs with frantic urgency. The knowledge pushes on the back of her mind, but she doesn't need the Eye to tell her what is about to happen. 

She's always been great at putting the pieces together. 

Elias continues, like he's holding a casual conversation with a coworker. "There was one good thing about her, and it was that she could not trust anyone. I didn't realize how little you actually knew until your stunt with the Eye. Just as well. You're all spark and no substance. You'll burn out quickly." 

Sasha clenches her hands into fists, but doesn't give into the fire. "I have already taken care of the Lonely."

"I'm aware. Splendid job. Peter never did know his limits — thought he could turn Martin to his side. Save the world from me." Elias shrugs, and the first of the eyes opens just beneath the collar of his coat. And then another, up his neck, and another until they bloom across his hands like flowers. "You even ignored his warning." 

The hums turn to whispers turn to the buzz of insects and try as she might, Sasha can feel her focus threatening to break. "I thought it was obvious, Jonah Magnus," she says, unable to look away from the thing made of Eyes. "I'm stopping you next."

The scene around her turns to a dark lake beneath a starless sky and she feels weightless, buoyed by unseen waves. 

He has no mouth to smile. But the thousand voices carry the image as they worm their way into her ears. " _I never did like to rush a job, but you know what? You'll have to do._ "

He covers her eyes, and Sasha inhales sharply. 

She can feel the first Eye open, and the next and the next as it consumes her, following the threads that she has gathered. Something takes her hand, or what was her hand, she is nothing but _knowing_ and everywhere and nowhere at once and she can see the edges of herself — dispersed and limitless and the tethers that bind her to the others burn gold — and the compulsion curls her fingers around each of them. 

"I promise this is the hardest part, but you'll forget soon enough," the voices say. "There won't be enough of you to remember." 

One by one, she rips them off. 

One by one, the Eye severs her connections, and she is left floating in a sea of darkness.

Soon, she forgets.


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Prelude-**  
>  Archivist, the scene you see is thus: There is a woman sprawled out on the floor of the Archives. 
> 
> You know who she is, because even though the nature of her has been changed, you can perceive the truth. Beneath the layers of vast realities piled over her like stifling blankets, like a shroud, like a pall, there is just a woman. 
> 
> Her eyes stare blindly up at the domed ceiling above, and what is left of her cries for reasons she has forgotten. The Eyes that make up the rest of her see and calculate and know. 
> 
> They watch. 
> 
> They do not wait, because there is no action to be taken. They only watch. 
> 
> Above her stands what used to be a man, but instead looms twisted with shadow and determination. 
> 
> He waits, because he knows what is coming. 
> 
> He sees you, and he smiles. 

( _The future swims before you in bits and pieces. Hundreds of thousands of bits and pieces and it is your job to separate them out according to the Watcher's whims. He sees them all through you._

_He selects the ones that he likes best, that suit a world beholden to him._

_He then arranges them into a narrative, one thread at a time, until he weaves a tapestry. Instant by second by minute until a lifespan is illustrated in his selected futures._

_And it will come true. He knows it will, because he feeds those threads back into you and through you they seep into the world._

_There is a narrative he dismisses, but a part of you still holds onto those threads — unable to remember what is so special about them, why his distaste for this story is so strong. _

_One of pitch dark that you lose track of, even being able to see everything. One of razor wire that hurts when you cling to it. One of the frailty of life, and one of severed connections. One of cold shimmering silk, and one that burns like a kiss. And one, golden, that won't leave your fingers no matter how you try._

_The Watcher has already dismissed that story, so you feel that you're allowed to indulge yourself in watching how it would have played out._

_And the scene you see is thus:_ ) 

* * *

"Well _obviously_ we're going back there," Tim says. It's not even a question to him. 

"To do what, exactly?" Melanie asks. She has one hand holding tightly onto Georgie's. She refuses to pay any attention to the man they just rescued.

Tim makes an incredulous noise, and is too busy blustering in pure shock to answer. 

"We stop Jonah Magnus," Basira says. It is also not a question to her. Now that they have Jon back, the next logical step is to stop the man who started it all. 

Jon sits with his legs crossed before him, one hand idly stroking the Admiral's head — as the little dragon has been unable to leave him alone the moment they were reunited. The other hand remains joined with one of Martin's. His gaze is distant, focused on a conversation that only he can hear. 

The others carry on without him anyway. 

"And to rescue Sasha," Tim adds. 

Basira concedes with a nod of her head. "Well, yes, I am hoping the two of those go hand in hand." 

"I don't care fuck all about Jimmy Magma until Sasha is safe," Tim says, and the grass at his feet starts to smolder. 

"She's made it through the Lonely," Martin says, the first words he's spoken that haven't been murmured directly into Jon's ear. "But that's the last I know. If it's any consolation… I think she's torn Peter Lukas to pieces." He presses the flat of his hand to his chest, and his brow furrows slightly. 

Tim sighs and tiny embers escape between his lips. "It's a start, I guess…" 

Jon breathes in, sudden and loud, and everyone turns to look at him. "Daisy?" 

The wolf is on her feet in an instant. "What is it?" 

"You're the fastest. You have to— You must—" He struggles for the words, but she seems to understand all the same. 

"What's happened?" Tim demands, rounding on Jon with a burst of flame. "What happened to Sasha?" 

Basira gathers up Daisy's sword, slinging it on over her back. "I will go with you," she says, the shadows created by Tim and their bonfire dancing as she moves. She hauls herself up onto Daisy's back in a single practiced move. 

The wolf does one final tight circle before leaping off into the forest. 

Her shadow seems to shift and double, but the illusion is gone before anyone can confirm. 

Tim starts to close in on Jon, but Georgie steps in between them. "Can you not be cryptic for _once_ in your miserable life?!" he shouts. 

Jon hobbles to his feet, then sags as his legs give out beneath him. 

Martin catches him with an arm around the waist. 

"Tim, I'm trying, but it's very hard to focus." Jon presses a hand to his forehead, then shivers. "The Watcher has used her in my place for the Ritual—" 

Tim swears and attempts to lunge at Jon, but Georgie and Melanie catch him before he can get too far. "Haven't you done enough already? Haven't you ruined her life enough?" 

"As much as I'm inclined to agree," Melanie says, ignoring the pointed cough from Georgie, "we've got to focus. It sounds like we still have a chance." She pauses a beat, then slowly turns to face Jon. "Right? We do have a chance?" 

Jon starts to nod, then breathlessly adds, "Yes. If we move now— Martin and I will go through the Lonely." 

Tim shakes off the hands holding him back, pulling smartly at his coat. "If that's the faster way around, then I'm going with you." 

"You can't," Jon says, voice heavy with a sigh. 

"Don't tell me what I can and cannot do—" 

Martin steps forward this time, hand held out in a placating gesture. "No, Tim, listen… You haven't been marked by it. It's in a volatile state right now with Peter gone and me… _here_. I don't think I'd be strong enough to keep it from taking you." 

"And _then_ where would we be," Melanie adds beneath her breath. "Having to go save your ass after rescuing Sasha without you." 

Tim grits his teeth and kicks uselessly at the fire. "Fine. _Fine_. But I swear on everything I am, that if I get there and something has happened to her, I _will_ burn the Archives to the ground." Tim spins around and stalks off into the trees towards where they left the horses. 

Melanie snorts, then places a kiss on Georgie's cheek. Without saying anything, she follows after. 

Georgie turns to look at Jon. 

He returns her look, the Admiral twining between his legs. 

She hugs him. "I'm glad you're okay," she says, words muffled into his shoulder. 

After a pause, he hugs her back. "That remains to be seen." 

She tries to hide her sniffle as she steps back, then gives Martin a watery smile. "I'll see you there," she tells them, before retreating as well. 

The Admiral gives Jon one final nuzzle before chirping and flying after her. 

Martin and Jon stand hand in hand for a moment longer. 

"Are you ready?" Jon asks, because he has to. 

"No," Martin says, because he doesn't know if he'll ever be able to face that place again. 

"I'm with you." 

Martin lifts their joined hands so he can press a kiss to Jon's knuckles. "I know." 

The wave of cold fog from the Lonely extinguishes the fire, and for a moment the lakes merge into one. 

And then the shore is left dark and empty — save for a single golden eye, watching. 

* * *

( _The threads you cling to weave themselves into the Watcher's tapestry while he is not looking. You don't stop it. There is a piece of you that loops those threads around her fingers and carefully inserts them into the story._

_And you let her._

_Because she is the part of you that remembers what it means to be connected, to be human, to be loved by those whose threads she will not let go of._

_And so you let her, and you keep the Watcher's gaze from her, because she is, after all, a part of you._ )


	21. Chapter 21

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Prelude-**  
>  Gertrude hands over the files of information — one set to Michael, who immediately flips it open and begins to read her notes contained within, and one set to Gerry, who simply tucks it under his arm. 
> 
> Sasha waits, but does not receive anything. 
> 
> "Well?" Gertrude asks when no one moves. "Don't you have to go do something?" 
> 
> Gerry gives a lopsided grin and a wink to Sasha before pulling Michael out of the office behind him. 
> 
> Sasha can hear their muttered conversation as they retreat down the hall. She doesn't move from her spot. 
> 
> It takes Gertrude several seconds before her pen stops scribbling and she looks up. "Is something the matter?" 
> 
> "I..." Sasha starts, then swallows down her hesitation and forges on. "I want a case to investigate as well." 
> 
> Gertrude lifts one grey eyebrow and looks around her office, the space crammed full of papers and books and files that have been in a half-state of investigation for years. "I need you here." 
> 
> "Is it because I'm the youngest?" she asks. "Gerry is hardly older than I am. You don't need to coddle me, you know." 
> 
> The laugh that comes out of Gertrude is far from matronly, but it suits her. "Is that what you think? That I baby you?" 
> 
> Sasha doesn't respond, because that is a little of what she thinks. 
> 
> Gertrude leans her elbows on her desk and sets her chin on the bridge of her fingers. "Sasha, I will tell you a secret that you must not let the boys know: I trust you to protect this place far more than I do them." 
> 
> It takes a moment for the meaning of the words to settle in, and she straightens her posture a little. "You do?" 
> 
> "You understand what it means to exist within this space. The attention to detail, the dedication to the truth." Her expression settles into something that is the closest the softness that Sasha thinks she will ever see on Gertrude. "I won't insult you by saying that you remind me of me when I was younger, because you're much more than that."
> 
> Sasha blushes with the praise. 
> 
> "I understand that you chafe at being left behind, and for that I apologize. But if anything should happen to me, or to Michael and Gerry, you are the final line of defense for the Archives. And you will be the only one of us to know all of this place's secrets." Gertrude lets her hands fall back onto the desk, and for just an instant, she looks so old and tired. "It will protect you as you protect it." 
> 
> Sasha nods in understanding. "Thank you, Gertrude." 
> 
> There is a hint of a smile on the old woman's face before she picks her pen back up. "Now go on then. And don't let me catch you bragging to the boys, alright?" 
> 
> "I won't," she says with a laugh. "It will be our secret." 
> 
> "Wise choice," Gertrude says, and returns to her work. 

( _The Watcher thinks he is safe because of the golden barrier that surrounds his Archives, and because he has discarded the threads of those who would seek to stop him._

_It is as simple as that._

_He is so confident in the world he is building that he forgets, for just long enough, that the threads he discarded are still bound to his Archives._

_The quiet part of you that cries as she weaves finishes her job. She finds the source of the barrier, the one erected by the Head Archivist to keep out those who would do harm._

_The Archives do not like being separated from those it cares about. It does not like that the Watcher is using that barrier to keep out the ones who call its halls home._

_She pulls it free, and the barrier falls._

_The Watcher does not notice, because his gaze is turned towards the future, and he forgets about the importance of the present._

_The dark thread that you watched for, lest it escape your notice, bleeds through the tapestry._

_The one of razor wire cuts through the rest._

_"Fuck you," that quiet, angry part of you says. The piece of you that is you, not the Eye. "My name is Sasha James, and these are my Archives."_

_She reaches up, and you reach with her._

_And that's when a wolf crashes through the doors._ )

* * *

Daisy hurls herself at the creature made of shadows and eyes. Her jaws clamp down on what was his hand as he tries to defend itself. 

A second beast, smaller than Daisy and made of pitch black shapes, barrels into the Watcher's legs. 

Basira follows at a slower pace, charcoal stick in hand. She draws the closed eye of her order on the doors to the building — murmuring a small apology as she does so. "It's only temporary. Just until the demon is under control." 

"Unhand me!" the Watcher cries in a hundred thousand different voices. He tries to rewrite the scene, pulling at the threads within his grasp, and things shift — but not enough. 

The smaller beast dissipates, only to reform several yards away. Daisy is undone and remade at the entrance to the Archives. It is short work to close the distance again, no matter how many times the Watcher keeps rearranging the pieces. 

Basira walks the same path again and again, but does so steadily, and each time, the distance is less and less. She draws more closed charcoal eyes as she goes. 

He growls and the sound is echoed by Daisy. "I am trying to bring order." 

"You are trying to force your idea of control," the wolf snarls back. "There are those more powerful than you who do not want your future." 

"Are there?" he asks with a laugh, focusing all his attention on keeping her at bay — at picking apart the pieces of her to wind her fears into a new story. He rolls to his knees and pushes himself upright. Daisy's ears flatten back against her head, and a small, distinctly human whimper escapes her as he approaches. "And where are they? Who will save you from the horrors you will cause?"

A hand closes around his wrist and he stops. 

"I will," the Archivist says as she calls his attention back down to her. 

He realizes, then, what she has done. " _You_ ," he hisses, rounding on her with the force of a hundred thousand eyes — burying their claws into her to try and find the lingering kernel that keeps her tied to this place. 

She grins, wild and ragged, and digs her nails into the memory of skin and bone. "Me." 

She takes the stream of futures, the instants and seconds and minutes, and pushes them back towards the Watcher. 

He shouts, struggling beneath her grip, and tries to tug himself free. 

But she only pushes harder, a loop of instants and seconds and minutes spiraling from him to her to him to her until she is able to latch her fingers onto his tapestry and she tears. 

And suddenly, everything _shifts_. 

* * *

( _You have the Watcher in your grasp. You stand across from him in an endless room, the emptiness of it reflected back on you like the walls are made of mirrors, all of them angled just so. Everything is illuminated by the single golden eye floating above you, tenuous as spider silk, but there._

 _You have your hands on his arm, and he struggles, but his ambition is no match for what you can see. For the knowledge that you hold._ )

* * *

"What do I do?"

( _You don't let go._ )

* * *

( _There's nothing else you can do, because to blink would be to admit defeat. To look away will let even one second slip from where you grasp his arm._

_"You're just as trapped here as I am," the Watcher says, with just one voice — his voice, not Elias'. Not the Eye's. "Stalemate."_

_You don't respond._

_You don't look away._

_And you don't let go._ )

* * *

Jon steps out of the Lonely, Martin close on his heels. He finds Basira kneeling at the southern point of the compass rose, drawing something on the marble with her charcoal stick. 

A wolf and a beast made of darkness pace the edges, circling it like the sun and moon. 

In the center, caught in a tableau, Sasha grips the Watcher's arm in both of her own — her fingers carving red crescents as she holds him in place. Their eyes are locked, neither of them breathing. 

As if removed from time. 

Jon looks to Basira. "What is happening?" 

"You think I understand this mess?" she grumbles, waving one hand as she frantically scrawls the symbols for her spell. "This is your business, not mine." 

"Will that be enough to bind him?" 

"We had better hope so." 

Jon pulls his hand free from Martin's. "If Tim arrives before we're done, stop him." 

A startled laugh works its way from Martin's mouth. " _How_?" 

He honestly doesn't have a good answer for that. "Then I hope that we're done quickly." Jon nods to Basira, and steps over the line of symbols. "Whenever you're ready." 

She sits back on her heels and studies her work. "As good as." 

Jon takes a breath, then places his hands on top of Sasha's. 

* * *

She doesn't flinch as Jon steps into the space from between angles in the reflections. 

"Well, look who finally decided to join us," the Watcher says, all charm and smiles. "The Archivist I was waiting for." 

Jon snorts. "I'm sorry that one of us wasn't enough." 

"A scene cannot be written if I do not have all of the pieces. You have all the necessary marks to make my vision a reality." 

"I don't know. Sasha seems to be doing a perfectly competent job." 

The hint of a smirk tugs at her lips. "You flatter me," she says, and her voice hums with the power of the Eye. 

The Watcher sneers, but is unable to tear his gaze away. "Have you come to take her place? That would be your exact brand of self-sacrificial heroism, wouldn't it?" 

"Do you reject that future so much?" Sasha asks, her voice honey-sweet and filled with innocent curiosity. The desire to understand, to learn, to know _everything_. "Or have you always assumed that Jon and I were at odds?" 

His multitude of eyes flicker, and a few show weakness. A few shift to Jon for an instant, but that is enough. 

"That because he took the job of Head Archivist, I would never be able to work with him. I suppose I didn't help that assumption, what with attempting to bind myself to the Eye, and the Stranger, and everything." Sasha shifts her grip on his hand, folding it between her own so she can take a step closer, and holds it against her chest.

Jon takes the Watcher's other hand. 

She can feel the shiver of the connection between them, and she allows the story to pass through him as well. "You do not tell this narrative, Jonah Magnus." 

A second golden eye opens above Jon and Sasha, then another and another until the soft illumination reflecting from the facets of the space begins to grow blinding. 

Jon advances to stand alongside Sasha, reveling in the hum of the Eye as it grows louder in his presence. "The job of the Archivist is to collect the pieces that you give them and separate fact from fiction. We are the ones who arrange the course of events." 

The Watcher's gaze is split between the two of them, scrambling for any sense of control that he can muster. But they can feel him crumbling, and the knowledge passes between them as easy as breathing. 

All of the eyes close at once, and the room is cloaked in total darkness. 

There is a beat, then two, and then the soft footfalls of a beast prowling closer. 

Still, Sasha and Jon do not let go. 

There is a deep, guttural growl before the creature lunges, and suddenly, finally, everything shifts.


	22. Chapter 22

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Prelude-**  
>  "What's he like?" Sasha asks, trying to decide how she's feeling about meeting the new Head Archivist.
> 
> "He's not worth shit," Tim grumbles. He's still in bed, showing no sign of even getting up and getting dressed any time soon. "I don't know why you're bothering."
> 
> "He's the new boss."
> 
> "He's not you."
> 
> Sasha meets his eyes in the mirror, and it helps, a little — to see her own buried frustrations reflected in his expression. "No," she agrees softly. "He's not."
> 
> She gets up from her vanity chair and sits on the edge of the bed to put on her boots. "Just as well, too," she says as Tim pushes her hair aside so he can leave a kiss on her neck. "I'd have to share you if he was another me."
> 
> He laughs into her skin. "There's barely enough of me for one of you."
> 
> "Well there you go."
> 
> "Hmm." Tim's arm curls around her waist and he nuzzles her jaw. "Five more minutes?"
> 
> Sasha laughs as she easily separates herself from his arms. " _I'm_ going to go introduce myself to my new boss," she says in between kisses. "You might have had the fortune of his company on the ride over from the main Institute, but I have yet to meet the man." She gives him one final kiss on the bridge of his nose before stepping out of his reach. "Don't be late."
> 
> "Doubt he'll notice," Tim says, flopping back into her pillows.
> 
> "I'll notice."
> 
> He groans at the ceiling as she closes the door behind her.
> 
> In the hall, she fixes her shirt from where Tim rumpled it and makes her way towards the Head Archivist's office.
> 
> At the door, she breathes in, breathes out, and knocks.
> 
> "Come in."
> 
> She opens the door and steps inside.
> 
> The man behind the desk is, charitably, scrawny. He has a face where it's hard to tell his age, but there's a dour air that hangs around him that could rival Gertrude when she was in one of her moods. He looks up at her entrance, and she's surprised to see how young his eyes look. "Yes?"
> 
> "My name is Sasha. I will be one of your Archival assistants." She hesitates, then steps forward to offer her hand.
> 
> Recognition dawns on his face, and some of the weight seems to lift from his frame. He rises to his feet in order to accept her handshake. "Oh. The Watcher mentioned you. You are the assistant from the previous Archivist, correct?"
> 
> "That's me!" She smiles as pleasantly as she can. "I know pretty much everything about this place, so please don't hesitate to ask me for anything."
> 
> There's hesitation before he returns the smile — a shy and shaky expression, like he's not used to the motion. "I... Thank you. I will."
> 
> Sasha gestures to the open door behind her. "Would you like a tour?"
> 
> "Oh..." The Archivist pauses, considering the hall beyond. "Actually, yes. That would be nice." He rounds the desk to join her, and she's surprised to find that they're close to the same height. Everything about him looks so frail, and she wonders if he's even aware of the dangers that can come with this job.
> 
> "You can call me Jon," he tells her as he pulls on his coat.
> 
> The smile comes easier this time. "I look forward to working with you, Jon."
> 
> He nods, as if satisfied with something. "And you, Sasha."
> 
> He has tremendously large shoes to fill, Sasha knows, but she hopes that she will be strong enough to give him the support he needs.

Jon finds her early in the morning, standing in the center of the Archives with her face tilted up towards the domed skylight. "Shouldn't you be resting?" 

Sasha lets out a huff of laughter. "I've already slept an entire day. Besides, Tim is too warm," she says. "It's going to be brutal in the summer." 

There's a look on Jon's face, something between surprise and embarrassment. He coughs to clear his throat and looks away, as if by doing that he wouldn't accidentally learn too much. 

Eventually, softly, he says, "I wanted to apologize." 

She glances at him curiously. "For what?" 

Jon gives her a _look_ , and she laughs. "Is it too presumptuous to say 'everything'?" 

"No, I suppose not. It's not really your fault, though." 

"In a way it is." 

She hums but doesn't answer. 

"Sasha, you... You didn't have freedom, exactly, but you had something close to it." Jon ruffles his hair in frustration. "You've given that up." 

She shrugs and shakes her head. "If you didn't take the Head Archivist position, I wonder if I would have been strong enough to reject the future that the Watcher wanted." 

"Don't say that—" 

"Jon," she laughs and turns to face him. "I had half the power that he needed and I wanted _more_. It's easy to lose yourself to that, especially when all of my connections to the rest of you had been cut off." Sasha can't help the shiver, and she hugs herself to fight off the memories.

He studies the marble beneath their feet, allowing her that moment of privacy. 

Basira's marks had been smudged by their passing, a faint reminder of what happened the day before. Sasha can still feel the ones that were missed in their rush to bind the Watcher. The blind spots throughout the building, waiting patiently until the Head Archivist can go and clean them. 

That will be Jon's job, not hers, as much as she longs for the ritual of it. 

"We no longer have a Watcher," Jon says into the silence between them. 

There is the buzz of the Eye in her ears, whispering to her to look for the solution he's offering. She wonders over the 'we'. Does he include her in that? What does it mean if he does? 

She doesn't comment. 

"The position is yours, if you want it." 

_That_ isn't what she expects. 

"What?" she splutters, dropping her arms to her side despite the chill seizing her spine. "The Watcher's seat?" 

"No—" Jon hurries to clarify. "No, heavens. I meant the Head Archivist position." 

Sasha stares at him wide-eyed. " _You_ mean to become the Watcher?" 

He tries to shrug it off casually, but she doesn't need a mark from the Eye to know how nervous he is with the prospect. "I have a full command of the Eye, don't I? We stood in that space together. He wanted someone with a connection to the other entities, so that he could control all of their tethers together." 

She continues to study him, to _really_ look. She can see the marks without even trying now, and the way that they tie him to those he calls friends. 

The line between the two of them is soft and gold, and hums with the surety of their bond. 

"You can think about it," he says, finally turning to face her. "I... well, Basira and I will have to write a report to the Institute, I suppose. If we do a decent job of it, they won't shut us down." 

There's a thrum of motion from her tether with Tim, and soon she can feel the heat of him approaching. 

Jon looks away when Tim arrives. "Just think about it, alright?" 

She nods wordlessly. 

He gives Tim a cursory if awkward nod in greeting before excusing himself from the conversation. 

"What was that about?" Tim asks as he takes Jon’s place at her side. 

"A new job offer," she says. 

"What? What kind of job?" He thinks about this for a second, then says, "So you'll be staying?" 

Sasha hesitates before shrugging. "I don't think I'd be able to leave again, even if I wanted to." 

Tim moves to stand in front of her, and she focuses her gaze on his face. "But you _don't_ want to?" he asks, hopefully. 

She takes his hands in her own. "This is where I belong." 

"And hey! You're alive! That has to count for something, right?" There is a nervous and hopeful expression on his face, and something unspoken that she understands anyway. 

"Yeah," she says with a smile. She steps in flush against him, rising up on her toes so she can kiss him. "It does." 

He grins into the kiss, giving her a second and a third even as she drops back onto the flats of her feet — twining their fingers together and swinging their arms. "You know, don't think I didn't notice you wearing my shirt." 

"You didn't say anything, so I was beginning to wonder." 

He snorts before stepping back to regard her at arm's length. "Oh, I noticed. Wearing one of my shirts, a skirt that had _clearly_ seen some mud in the last week, feet bare and hair unbound." He whistles and gives her a once-over. "That was quite a look for saving the world." 

She laughs as he spins her around. "I didn't save the world." 

" _Sasha_ ," he says in that tone of his that means he's about to say something ridiculous. 

" _Tim_ ," she says in the same tone. 

"You _are_ my world." 

She laughs again because she can't help it. He pulls her in against him, and her arms curl around his neck with practiced ease. "I love you," she tells him, overflowing with delight. 

_This_ , she thinks as he leans in to kiss her beneath the early morning sun filtering in through the domed skylight, _this is my world._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Epilogue**  
>  Sasha stands in the center of the compass rose and looks around her in awe. The building is new, erected within the last few years to coincide with the new Watcher, but already she can feel the history held within the space. 
> 
> Behind her, the front doors of the building are thrown open to the spring morning. The warm, buttery sunlight highlights the striations in the marble and catches the motes of dust that dance in a breeze. Ahead, north on the compass, are the doors to the Watcher's office. Those remain closed. 
> 
> She can hear the call of birdsong twining together with the whispers of stories, the scent of wildflowers and overflowing ink filling her nose.
> 
> She thinks she might be in love with this place. She thinks she might not ever want to leave. 
> 
> "You must be Sasha James," a woman says, and she turns to find the Head Archivist approaching from between the stacks. "You arrived earlier than expected." 
> 
> "I'm sorry," Sasha says. "I couldn't sleep." 
> 
> The older woman lifts an eyebrow, but it does little to hide the trace of amusement in her eyes. "I see. So you set out from the Institute on horseback in the middle of the night?" 
> 
> Sasha blushes, because yes. She did. 
> 
> The Head Archivist waves her hand to brush it aside. "My name is Gertrude. You will be working as one of my assistants for the foreseeable future." 
> 
> She wonders if she should curtsy or something, but Gertrude is already heading back towards the far side of the Archives, where — now that she's listening — several more voices rise in conversation. 
> 
> Gertrude pauses at the first row of shelves and turns back to look at Sasha. "Well, come along then," she says when she realizes she's not being followed. "I will introduce you to the rest of the team." 
> 
> "Coming!" Sasha says needlessly, and hurries to catch up — earning another amused little look from Gertrude. 
> 
> And as she enters the stacks, Sasha thinks, _I cannot wait to learn every piece of this world._


	23. author notes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I thought it would be fun to include my outlines for the entire "every open eye" verse, so this also includes my outline/initial notes for 'Watching the Waiting' and the super rough outline I had for 'When your Seams have Come Unknitted'. 
> 
> You can see all my dropped threads that I never did end up incorporating into the plot, or things I might tackle as drabbles in the future! (or you are free to request as drabbles/lore dumps from me lmao)
> 
> Forgive the formatting, it's just notes so I'm not going to clean it up. 
> 
> Also, in case you missed them before:  
> \- [general series playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5C3YtEEH4uauQ5vINEEqSO?si=WZVo5Fd8SKyRHbTR0Kck2A)  
> \- [tim/sasha playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3A1Q1THmSurdUCH4HjHuAi?si=3QaN7YlLS9C4NafNTTfr8Q)  
> \- [aesthetic pinboard](https://www.pinterest.com/littleladymab/the-watchers-crown/)  
> \- [Art of Georgie and Melanie](https://twitter.com/smallpolar_bear/status/1248377134545952769)

Oh lawd here we go

We’re just going to start with the Georgie and Melanie portion because otherwise we’ll be here ALL DAY, that will be for later. 

These are such boring ass fantasy names but here we are

Georgie and Jon = old mage buddies! They trained together, traveled together, they dated, you know, the usual. Georgie might be a necromancer, but even she thinks there’s a line to draw in the sand with some of the forces that Jon pokes at. They’ve put distance between themselves to try and repair the friendship, and usually the place they meet up is in a shared dream space (probably one they created because they are Like That) 

I have to figure out some stuff about Jon and his relationship to Elias/Jonah and how that plays out, but I definitely think that a lot of G&J’s time together becomes her telling him to just fuccKING LEAVE and he’s like “no i have so much I still have to learn” but whenever the stress becomes too much there’s just an increasing number of eyes floating around him or appearing on his skin like brands etc (it’s just a nice visual) 

Georgie KNOWS something is up when she enters the dream space and there is someone else there and it’s just A PERSON MADE OUT OF GLOWING EYES i can’t decide if it is there IN PLACE of Jon or just STANDING OVER Jon (I do like the visual of it holding jon underwater) and when Georgie appears it’s ALL EYES ON GEORGIE and then just melts away

If it’s set in a way that’s a “post S4” sort of vibe, then Melanie has just fucking up and left whatever bullshit Jon and his crew are getting into (which right now is just a bunch of ????? WHAT ARE THEY GETTING INTO no matter what it’s going to be extremely DND orz) so like? Her blinding herself is a huge power move on her part, and very much of her own agency, so i gotta build it in a way that reflects that, especially where she’s just faced with these super powerful magical entities to be able to say ‘fuck u’ 

End result: I think she’s just recently come to be with Georgie, so that when Georgie is like “I have to go save Jon” Melanie can be “FUCK HIM” but also she loves Georgie and so she goes 

Yes 100% The Admiral is a tiny little dragon 

So like generic character stuff in case I need to reference it: 

  * Georgie: necromancer, able to summon and interact with ghosts (not bodies) she likes to study the effects of magic on ghosts and spirits and dreams 
  * Melanie: ranger, blind, has been ‘training’ with the admiral for shits & giggles (I’m not saying that it’s going to be [gareth and silverwings from quest for camelot ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPLtD6N9WO0)but melanie totally wants to use the admiral to be her seeing eye dragon)
  * Jon: got them good warlock vibes, obsessed with knowledge & research
  * Martin: ??? WHAT IS HIS DEAL??? Not quite Jaskier level of Bard, I do like the idea of him having some minor healing abilities, but I really want to find a good way to play into his connection to the Lonely (whatever that means here) (There was a post about how he’s more inclined to violence than Jon is, and YO Leliana level of Bard? Martin doing espionage????) 
  * Basira: has been described as a paladin, so I will have to think about the religious implications of that at a Later Time but [hello this fanart ](https://littleladymab.tumblr.com/post/189374114734/the-arabic-term-basira-denotes-the-inner-eye)really makes me want to play into this perception of her vs elias 
  * Sasha: was labeled as a wizard, so she’s another mage, but like with Anders and Justice vibes I think, she did some Thing she wasn’t supposed to and got a spirit stuck inside of her that she can call on at will (or sometimes not) and that is how we get not!Sasha 
  * Daisy: rogue turned barbarian who refuses to rage? WOLF GIRLFRIEND WOLF GIRLFRIEND YO WHAT IF SHE’S JUST A GIANT WOLF ALL THE TIME THO
  * Tim: he is that quintessential image of a free-lance swordsman who is kind of slouchy but incredibly charming but also i want him to have a big fuck-off weapon 
  * Jonah vs Elias: I DON’T EVEN KNOW YET 
  * Peter Lukas is there too because I need him to be an influence over Martin and pull at Elias like the annoying bastard man he is 



Who is dead? I don’t know! 

* * *

G&M Fic outline-ish, which is mostly question marks at this point 

  * Georgie has a dream that indicates Jon is in trouble - she wakes up Melanie and is like “we have to go” 
    * Melanie voice “no, he’s fine, he’s probably just doing another one of his fucked up experiments, you know what he’s like” but Georgie insists that something is Wrong
  * Next day they get their stuff together and head out. 
    * Georgie doesn’t quite know where they’re going, and will probably try and do some soul-tracking magic along the way 
    * It doesn’t work, she can’t locate Jon (she probably also tries to locate Martin, because if anyone would know where Jon is, it’s him, but she can’t get ahold of him either — something to do with his connection to the lonely making his soul wander in a way that it’s hard for magic like hers to locate it) 
    * Cue panic
    * Melanie voice “he’s too much of a shit heel to die that easily it’s fine he’ll be fine” 
  * I will need to think of some fun things to do while traveling so here is the big ???????? section that I have to work out
  * At one point, I do want them to run into Oliver, who was on his way to find Georgie 
    * Maybe Georgie has the dream again, and this time she sees Oliver there, and he tells her to wait where she is so he can find her asflkj 
    * They have a talk about what could have happened, and Oliver is just increasingly nervous because Melanie is there needlessly sharpening her blade because she can
    * Perhaps the dream isn’t where she normally meets Jon, and so that helps cue her in on something being wrong, and Oliver is like “It is a real place, but it’s just SWAMPED with spirits and ghosts” 
    * Georgie voice “that’s not a problem for me” and Oliver just sighs and describes the area surrounding it that he was able to explore in his dreams to that point
    * Melanie can start recognizing land-marks and goes very quiet until Oliver leaves (he wants to stay and help Georgie but also is terrified of Melanie and also what they’re up against, he’s too tired for this shit) 
  * SOME MORE ????? 
    * Where do I want it to end? Where IS Jon? These are questions that I need answers to 
    * In the larger AU version, which would be from Martin or Jon’s POV, Melanie and Georgie would show up at some point being like WHERE IS THE PROBLEM WE ARE HERE TO FIX IT and this fic is the “behind the scenes” of them getting there 
    * I’m just saying that a real good visual image is Georgie standing in a lake with a bunch of ghosts and spirits swirling around her and Melanie there with a sword drawn to protect her 



* * *

Notes! All sorts of out of order!!

  * Jonah as a Demon who is sealed away by Basira’s order
  * He’s been gaining power and took over Elias’ body, so Basira can still feel that push/pull with him, but isn’t too sure sure why 
  * Elias was just some average joe cleric who then got possessed rip og!elias 



The Ceaseless Watcher: A church of scribes, a little Crystal Palace in that they have Institutes set up in which there is someone who recites prophecy and people who record and study it all. 

  * Elias was one of the assistants of this order, and one day he started actually speaking prophecies. He is escalated quickly through the ranks
  * Gertrude is assigned as his archivist, which she resents the hell out of. Her assistants are Michael, Gerard, and Sasha 
  * Shenanigans similar to canon happen in order for Gertrude’s demise. In part of her investigation of the prophecies, her assistants do, uh, die/are touched by others (specifically Michael & Gerard) 
  * Sasha in training to be an archivist, remains behind while the others go out -> Meets Tim this way 
  * After Gertrude dies, Jon is brought in from the Institute as the new Archivist for Elias and sasha is _furious_
  * Tim and Martin come in as new assistants 
  * By this point, Sasha is certain that _something_ is up and wants to prove that she is a capable Archivist/that something is wrong 
    * She attempts to reach out to the Eye directly, possibly to see the truth or just to prove she can, and it backfires. Something else emerges and merges with her and that’s how we get not!Sasha! 
    * She is fired for this stunt oops but probably only because Jon saves her and promises that the thing is sealed away? Either way he convinces Elias not to have her offed or something 
    * She’s still connected to the eye because no one is aware of 1) the way to sever it 2) that there even IS that connection 
  * Melanie is brought on as a new assistant, and Basira is assigned to guard them (in case one tries another Dumb ritual? In case someone tries to attack? It’s not clear!)



Jon as Archivist: Starts out extremely perfunctory. A little annoyed at being called away from his studies to have to come and do this, but he’s still sort of miffed from an argument with Georgie before taking it. 

  * But really lean into the desire and hunger for knowledge, and well it doesn’t make him a better Archivist, but it makes it easier for Magnus



Martin considerations: Connection to the Lonely via Parentage, and that is why the Web and Corruption are so keen on him, gotta love promises of affection and connections when you’re surrounded by none!

  * What is his role in the Institute then? Will he have been working for Lukas the entire time? Or trying to ignore all three Entities by diving into something that could consume him in a (supposedly) less dangerous fashion? 
    * So? Lukas? What’s your deal? Deal with a Devil to try & save Jon? 
      * Basira voice “I turn my back for ONE MINUTE”
      * What does he want out of Martin or the Institute? 
    * But! God, the visual of Lukas coming to Martin to make him a deal the moment everyone leaves him alone after Jon’s disappearance is so good. 
    * So: Figure out Lukas first, then Back to Martin. 



So How does Daisy fit into all of this? Emma makes a good point in that Daisy’s story is all about fighting against her monstrous urges — a lot of it is also able to use Jon as a tether. How much would it be removing her agency in her balance if we make it so that Jon pulled her from a brink? 

  * What would that look like? What would that mean re: her relationship to Basira? Because now that tension will carry between them as they try to find Jon 
  * What IS the hunt in this setting? I would love for Trevor and Julia to show up in some capacity
  * Figure out her relationship to Basira’s role first - Basira has no weapon perhaps? Uses Daisy as that weapon/bodyguard instead? 
  * So then how does this connect her to Jon? He acts more of a balm than Basira? He does go into the buried for her, or is it some monster vs monster? 



Something about Jon as the Archivist keeps the monstrous tendencies of the others from coming out, their connection to the eye and his connection to the web feed them to him instead: 

  * Placate the hunt in Daisy; pulled her out of the Buried 
  * Quell Tim’s Desolation streak; saved him from the Fire
  * Martin’s feelings for him create a feedback web loop oops 
  * Melanie’s anger aimed towards Jon specifically when the Slaughter is normally an “at large” sort of thing 
  * Elias is able to aggravate it - a la canon he can insert images/knowledge that is true, here he is able to just tickle the parts of them that are connected to the demons/fears 



Okay! Tim Time!

  * I have settled on Desolation as the most Tasty option — reckless, rampant destruction, unthinking “all the worst parts of the fire with none of the warmth” 


  * When Sasha reunites with him, he’s the extremely callous end of S3 version of himself
  * He’s extremely with Melanie on this: I don’t want to have to save him, but the person I love is throwing herself into danger for him, so I’ll go
  * Also, Tim with some residual fire magic from his time with the cult of the lightless flame? Fuck that “They can’t make fire” nonsense thIS IS FANTASY 



Jon! Oh Jon. Not Gertrude’s first choice for archivist, but you still go through it!

  * He tells Georgie stories of all his adventures, so she knows of all of his assistants and other shenanigans he has gotten into 
  * Much like Gertrude, he sends his assistants out on missions on behalf of the EYe to investigate Elias’ prophecies, but unlike Gertrude he actually went after them to save them 
    * Or they came and fucked him up, etc, you know 
  * So the unknowning wants to happen and it needs him! The scene in the lake, the attempted ritual? Did he go there on purpose? He deffo fucked it up on purpose to save Georgie
    * There is something/some reason that Jon was dragged there in the first place, so it being with his consent is likely? The offer to become a prophet, to save people by seeing the truth and the future — Georgie was not a servant of the eye, so it finding her intriguing was a no-no 



* * *

****** NEW NOTES**

  * **3 (pre-chapter interlude)** Jon with the Eye, from his POV 
    * conversation w/Elias 
      * Basira comes along as Moral support, maybe to ease the initial pressure of the Eye
      * So now we can get some of that good Elias vs Basira interaction 
      * “Oh, I wasn’t aware that you would be returning, Sasha” “I’m as surprised as you are.” “Come to take the place of the missing Archivist, now that you have your chance?” “I already had my chance, and we saw how well that went.” “Just as well, Jon is on an important mission from the Eye. I wouldn’t want you getting too comfortable in a role that isn’t yours.” 
        * IS ELIAS BULLSHITTING THROUGH HIS TEETH??? Because by this point Jon has scattered??? So does he know? Or is he just “oh shit oh damn gotta play it cool”, vs “oh it’s okay they’ll bring the pieces of him back together, excellent, and I’ll have a backup if he fucks up again”??
      * Sasha asks him about the golden barrier around the Archives, and I think THIS might actually surprise him, either that she can see it or that he didn't know it was there? But it’s a defensive spell that Jon left behind
  * **4 (pre-chapter interlude)** Sasha trying to connect to the Eye 
    * Sasha wandering through the Archives trying to get familiar with them again, like “introducing herself to them” 
      * (post-chapter interlude?) Basira talking to Martin, though Peter is there 
        * She’s trying to get his attention to come help, and he refuses, but there is the SLIGHTEST reaction when she says that Sasha is back 
  * **5 (pre-chapter interlude)** Sasha meeting Martin 
    * Conversation w/Martin 
      * Sasha walking through the Archives on her own, rounds a corner, collides with Martin 
        * this is like SENSORY OVERLOAD, where Jon is in the lake, and then I think she just gets accidentally sent to the Lonely because she and Martin are both incredibly volatile at the moment 
        * He’ll give her the hint of what he’s doing, and begs her to find Jon because otherwise all of this will not mean anything aka he might as well just send the world into Arrell bubbles because at least it means that Elias doesn’t get to be a creepy voyeur 
  * **6 (pre-chapter interlude)** Slaughter mode Melanie 
    * To the lake to meet with Georgie + Melanie 
      * Georgie tells them what is happening as she learned from Oliver
  * **7 (pre-chapter interlude)** Sasha and Gerry 
    * Sasha into the lake! 
      * The Eye takes her to Gerry, and they chat I guess? 
      * DOES HE GIVE HER JON’S BODY? Or like the piece? I haven’t quite figured that out yet THANKS TO TWITTER POLL there won’t be a body, but Sasha will get the mark. 
      * But then she’s like “oh shit wait something is happening I can’t breathe” and there is a black tendril thing and Gerry is “NOT TODAY” and helps her center so she can return
  * **8 (pre-chapter interlude)** Jon and Daisy 
    * The Stranger took over as the eye did a Deep Dive to look for Jon 
      * So Daisy attempts to uhhh drown her, because hey, I said if you weren't gonna be a problem I would let you live anD YOU'RE BEING A PROBLEM
      * Joke's on you Daisy, Sasha pulls you right back down
  * **9 (pre-chapter interlude)** Jude, Jon, and Tim 
    * Jude is waiting for them back at the Archives 
      * She's here to reclaim Tim, as the agreement that she had with Jon is broken now that he is gone — she does it as a “oh look this will make it safer for the Archives, he’s volatile without Jon here, and with Sasha around, well…. smirk.emoji”
      * He’s just! Gonna mcfuckin combust and we don’t really know how much of it is actually Jude’s influence oops
      * Sasha says "joke's on you I'm taking him back" 
      * She holds onto him ignoring the fire “Come back to me, Tim” 
  * **10 (pre-chapter interlude)** Sasha + Tim scene 
    * Convo with Tim in his room 
      * He tells her about the fall to Desolation after she left
      * She says that she might stay, after all of this is done: “I don’t think I’ll be able to leave again” “You could ask Jon, he could rebind it, or whatever he did. Or you could even, couldn’t you?” “I don’t know if the Eye will let me go this time.”
  * **11 (pre-chapter interlude)** Something a la canon with the dark sun cause DAMN, Jon+Basira 
    * Basira and the Dark 
      * Oh my god Basira vs Elias how could I forget 
  * **12 (pre-chapter interlude)** Jon + Melanie - her leaving the institute 
    * Conversation w/Melanie 
      * She corners Sasha to say "neither Georgie or I are connected to the eye, don't you dare try to drag us back to it" 
      * And this is how Sasha learns of severing the connection to the Eye, and Melanie offers to like, do her that solid (it's more of a threat than a positive offer) 
      * Melanie comes when Sasha Is trying to think of ways to bring Jon back and she's like whelp all i can do is just bundle all these tethers together and pull I guess 
      * Melanie tells her to not use Georgie, because she doesn't belong here and she's given too much of herself to a man that doesn't deserve her 
      * Sasha voice "do NOT get me involved in your relationship drama" 
      * Melanie: something something snippy, to which Sasha replies "you have no idea what I've gone through--" and Melanie shouts that she had to blind herself in order to leave this place and that brings Sasha up cold
      * "The eyes, of course, it all makes sense now what Basira was doing to the paper, what I saw--" she starts to panic because that's when she concludes that YEP its Elias when... Lukas arrives? I think lukas, more drama with marto later 
      * Sasha moves to stand in front of Melanie as if it'll make any difference but they're holding hands because even if they were arguing they support each other! 
      * He makes some kind of comment about how it's better this way and he's not too keen on getting the archivist back because that interferes with his plans, and hey you know what, what if *i* gave you a way to leave the archives?
  * **13 (pre-chapter prelude) ???? what is relevant???**
    * Melanie and Sasha fuck right out of there! We don’t want none of your shit mr lukas!
    * Maybe daisy should show up because there hasn't been enough of her
    * Sasha sends everyone on ahead to head to the lake (the eye can't see there), daisy stays behind with her, and she writes a quick letter to Martin and slips it under his door 
  * **14 (pre-chapter interlude) Jon + Georgie, the argument when he gets the job, in their library dream space**
    * Conversation w/Georgie 
      * About obtaining the pieces, and putting Jon back together
      * Sasha says that she has to be the anchor, Georgie the line, and it's like fishing and everyone is just ??? (Except tim, who is smitten)
      * She uses basira and Georgie to form the shape and she stands in the middle and uh it's kind of like an eye and she has the others gather around them, and she and Georgie get ready to start the spell when Martin shows up 
  * **15 (pre-chapter interlude) Jon + Martin, idk something Yearning**
    * Jon getting ready to head out to the lake when he runs into martin, it’s awkward, but they uhhh try their best? 
    * He asks if Martin wants to come with him, and oh boy he’s hopeful, “It will be like old times!” but Martin says no, maybe another time, “the last time we went on a job together, it ended in… well… worms…” “To be fair that was the entire institute.” “Yeah, but then you told me after that you thought I was cursed.” “............I did say that, didn’t I.” Awkwaaaard.
    * Georgie and Sasha prepare the spell for Martin 
      * Basira helps to blind the eye, Sasha is the tether to the eye to find him, Georgie is the tether to the End to get him
      * Martin is pale and shaking but grim faced "I'll do it" so he stands in the middle and B+S+G make the outer circle, and D+T+M stand guard.
      * I will think of what happens while they stand there but Sasha does NOT let them break the circle
      * End of 15, talking about everyone getting ready and into position and Sasha pulls together all the strings of them, looping them around her fingers. "And then she begins to weave."
      * 15 interlude, Martin walking on a shore, and the feel of the tether getting weaker, and then he finds himself standing in the surf, forgetting why he's there!
    * (and then we’ll have a jonmartin interlude fic)
  * **16 (pre-chapter interlude) Basira finding them after the buried**
    * It's probably some fear fest or something 
      * Tim is so bored "do you want me to wipe the sweat from your brow or something" "It won't stay quiet for long" and Melanie is already in action like a badass
      * Daisy to Basira (Sasha voice 'Interesting') "I don't think I will be able to hold back" "I won't be able to stop you if something happens, I cannot break this circle" "I just need you to trust me." (strained) "Alright. I do."
      * HERE is where Sasha gets the mark of the Dark because Basira loses her grasp on keeping it in Check 
  * **17 (pre-chapter interlude) Lukas arrival Jon POV**
    * Lukas confronting Sasha in the Lonely, it will be a great place for her anD OH! NOT!SASHA ARRIVES as a separate being 
      * There will be some technical bullshit like, when Jon pulls Martin out, Peter follows because they are Up To Shenanigans and He Doesn’t Like It (frowny face)
  * **18 (pre-chapter interlude) Jon + Sasha (sealing away the stranger)**
    * Sasha face off! In the lonely!! 
    * OG Sasha wins of course do NOT ask me the details i do NOT know 
    * Interlude: _The scene you see is thus_ : Sasha giving Peter Lukas the ENDING HE DESERVES and then she winds back up in the Archives and Elias is there “you know what, you’ll have to do” 
  * **19 (pre-chapter interlude) Oliver trying to warn Sasha re: Gertrude’s death**
    * Elias forcing Sasha into the Watcher’s Crown ritual. 
      * “It’s a shame, Gertrude caught on quick and tried to stop me once. I couldn’t use you, I thought, you’re too like her.” 
  * **20 + ??? Who knows!!!** Don’t ask me about the pre-chapter interludes I got no idea 
    * Elias is so busy attempting the ritual on Sasha that he gets distracted by Basira (I might give her a shadow creature aka the Still and Lightless Beast) and Hunt!Daisy’s arrival and like one or both of them launching themselves at Elias lol 
      * Sasha does what Jon did and forces the Eye back onto her, for a feedback loop! 
      * And then Jon arrives and joins in on the feedback loop!!! 
      * Whatever they do blinds him momentarily and Basira steps in to brand or bind him or w/e so he’s back under their control
  * **Last Chapter prelude: Jon + Sasha meeting**
    * Jon and Sasha convo, discussing the future
    * Tim saunters up, so Jon excuses himself. “So you’ll be staying?” “I don’t think I’m able to leave…” “But hey! You’re _here_! And you’re alive. That has to count for something.” (like, “ _I_ have to count for something” vibes) and she gives him a soft smile and a kiss and says “Yeah, it does.” 
    * “You know, wearing one of my shirts, a skirt that has clearly seen some mud in the last two days, bare feet, and unbound hair — that’s quite a look for saving the world.” 
  * **Epilogue** : Sasha’s first day, on the compass rose and admiring the archives, ends with Gertrude calling her over to meet the others. 



AU Title ideas

  * To impress the dark, "Lonely Star" by Oh Wonder
  * Something about cracks in things
  * ["Kintsugi - Broken & Shining" - Shivani Gupta ft. Joshua Thomas | UnErase Poetry](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Wj_QGQD7Vg)
  * Everything I never deserved, "Never Ending Circles" by CHVRCHES
  * Inside every open eye "Clearest Blue" by CHVRCHES (series)
  * A lifeline to highs and lows, "Afterglow" by CHVRCHES
  * Tiny cracks of light, "leave a trace" by CHVRCHES



* * *

JonMartin: “when your seams have come unknitted” ([ “the rockrose and the thistle” by the amazing devil ](https://theamazingdevil.bandcamp.com/track/the-rockrose-and-the-thistle)) i swear to god i wrote this outline the day before TMA170 came out can you believe the perfect fodder they have provided me 

Outline: _The scene you see is thus:_ for the prelude, and again as it shifts to Martin in the Lonely.

  * POV: Jon, maneuvering through the lonely. Start the focus on Martin in the lake, and the scattered threads — Martin finds one gossamer string and picks it up and that’s the start, then it’s on Jon finding the rest and pulling himself back 
    * Just every so often? I don’t know we’ll see how it works out when getting into it
  * Scenes are Martin’s POV, are interlaced with Martin’s i guess disembodied voice that Jon holds a conversation with as he walks and he just sees little ghostly Martin’s by each 
    * Their first meeting
    * Martin making tea for Jon after The Sasha Incident 
    * Bandaging Jon’s hand after The Tim Incident 
    * Waiting for Jon by whatever the buried is in this verse 
    * Lukas’ arrival from Martin’s POV 
    * Jon telling him about the opportunity to leave the Archives 
    * Lukas telling Martin what he needs to happen “I can’t have Jon coming back unless you think you can get him on our side, because I cannot have the Watcher’s future it is _So_ unfashionable” 
  * Then he’s got his Martin! The one who came into the Lonely to try and save him! “I have given too much of myself to this place. Sasha warned me this would happen.” (Wan smile) Jon Voice “You’re daft and I like that in a man” 
    * Martin will be like "okay I can send you back, here's the tether, just follow it" and Jon is just “don't be a fucking fool you're coming with me" 
    * And then they smooch
  * And then idk something happens and it’s cool when they return but also they kind of return to chaos because Sasha was attacked by darkness and then disappeared 
  * It might just end with “Let’s go home” and then some chapter interlude probs 17 will have them stumbling back out of the lonely



**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THANK YOU SO MUCH TO EVERYONE WHO HAS READ AND LEFT A COMMENT u give me life

**Author's Note:**

> THANK YOU to dianne for the beta comments, and to Emma, Jade, and Lu for letting me bounce ideas off of you at the start! and ofc, thank you everyone who has been cheering me on on tumblr this one goes out to all of you 🥰


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